(The Center Square) – A proposed Tennessee bill will prevent third-party vendors who enter data for the state’s colleges from selling that information.
The third-party data mining leads students to get bombarded with offers when they arrive at college, said House sponsor Tim Rudd, R-Murfreesboro.
House Bill 1837 unanimously passed the House on Feb. 26 and the Senate is set to take up its companion bill, Senate Bill 1745, on Thursday morning.
“A lot of universities hire third-party non-governmental agencies to input data and all of their student information and those third-party organizations, unbeknownst to the universities, has been selling student information,” Rudd said.
The bill would make third-party vendors sign an agreement to not use the data for anything other than its original intended purpose before being allowed to input data.
An amendment on the bill clarifies the universities are allowed to share athlete information with the Southeastern Conference, said Senate sponsor Paige Walley, R-Savannah.