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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A state Senate committee has endorsed a proposed bill that would prohibit K-12 teachers and school officials from prying into students' private personal social media accounts.
The unanimous action Wednesday by the Senate Education Committee sends Senate File 14 to the full Senate for further consideration.
Committee member Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, said nothing in Wyoming caused lawmakers to propose the legislation, but other states had been dealing with the issue. "We've heard of some problems in other states," Rothfuss said.
The goal of the proposal is to give school districts clear rules on how to handle student social media accounts, he said.
Under the proposal, school district employees could not require or ask a student to provide his or her login information for access to private emails, text messages or other social media belonging to the student.
Social media accounts created in association with school business would be precluded from the privacy protections. Officials would still be allowed to access a student's public account, and the bill would not inhibit law enforcement investigations related to information on students' online accounts.
In addition, school officials could ask a student's parents or guardian to see the social media information.
Brian Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association, said he had concerns about the bill being too restrictive on school officials, especially if there is imminent risk of danger to the student or others. "The timeliness becomes an important issue," Farmer said.
But Rothfuss said dangerous situations should involve police, who must adhere to separate laws regarding privacy. "The teachers, the administrators in schools are not law enforcement," he said.
The bill also directs the state Department of Education to help develop guidelines on the collection, access, security and use of student data by districts and standards for protecting information in data that might identify individual students.
Separately, the state House on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a bill regarding the private emails of K-12 and college students. The bill would declare such correspondence as not being a public record that must be made available to anyone who requests to see it.
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