AFT, UFT and Microsoft sign AI privacy standard enforceable by districts

Smith says Microsoft will offer standard to every U.S. school district

The American Federation of Teachers, the United Federation of Teachers and Microsoft announced the agreement on Sept. 9, creating legally enforceable protections for students, educators and families. The deal follows New York City Public Schools’ recent ban on student-facing artificial intelligence and screens.

Under the standard, vendors cannot use student data to train AI systems. Students cannot be tracked through school-issued tools. AI cannot make decisions affecting students without human oversight. Companies must give educators and parents transparency and plain-language explanations of how their tools work, a press release said.

The protections become enforceable through Microsoft customer agreements. School districts that incorporate the standards into their contracts with Microsoft gain contractual remedies — including the ability to end agreements and seek damages — if vendors violate the rules. “This standard sets a high bar for child privacy and AI safety, and we’ll extend this agreement to every school district across the country,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement.

“We have forged a hard-fought, iron-clad privacy agreement with real teeth that protects students and families, because no one else, including the federal government, has stepped up to do the real work,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “We can get angrier and angrier, or we can act decisively; anything less than legally enforceable provisions is simply a wish list.”

“This agreement gives families and school districts the information and privacy protections they have been demanding, and it empowers school districts to end agreements and seek damages from bad actors who break the rules,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said. “It starts to level the playing field in a competitive, ever-changing arena that lacks the guardrails our children and school communities need.”

The agreement builds on Weingarten’s May speech, “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands-On,” in which she outlined her fight for an enforceable data privacy standard and called for a total screen ban from kindergarten through second grade, a ban on student-facing AI in elementary school and a ban on social companion chat bots for those younger than 16.

Some of the country’s largest school districts, including Los Angeles and New York, have adopted similar plans. “HIPAA and FERPA never envisioned the advent of AI,” Weingarten said, “and in the absence of those protections, tech companies need to take responsibility for the products they create and market to students, educators and communities.”