Delaware has become the first state to pass a law banning public and private schools from requiring students to give administration access to social media accounts, Mashable reports. The bill forbids institutions from requesting students to provide passwords or account information, asking students to log onto a social media site in the presence of a government agent, requiring the installation of a monitoring device that gives the institution access, or requiring students to add an agent to their online contacts. The bill — which still needs the governor’s signature to be fully enacted — is a significant move in the long-standing fight for digital privacy, say its advocates.
“Since schools generally do not have a duty to monitor their students’ off campus activities in the real world, they shouldn’t have a duty to monitor their students’ off campus digital activities,” Bradley Shear — the attorney who helped draft the social media law…
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