College Board Sharing SAT Scores With Social Media Companies, Report Finds
The College Board, a non-profit that administers SAT tests and Advanced Placement exams, has been sharing sensitive data — including SAT scores and GPAs — with social media companies like Facebook and TikTok.
That’s according to an investigative report by Gizmodo.
The College Board shares this data via “pixels,”invisible tracking technology used to facilitate targeted advertising on platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. The data is shared along with unique user IDs to identify the students, along with other information about how you use the College Board’s site.
Organizations use pixels and other tools to share data so they can send targeted ads to people who use their apps and websites on other platforms, such as Google, Facebook, and TikTok.
According to Gizmodo, the College Board initially denied sharing the information. When Gizmodo reporter Thomas Germain showed them evidence in the form of a screenshot, they retracted.
The findings raise questions about privacy.
Our tests didn’t show the College Board sharing information like names or phones numbers, which fall in the category of personal info. However, pixels and cookies typically contain unique stings of letters and numbers meant to identify and track users. For years, experts have argued and demonstrated this poses privacy risks and is far from anonymous.
Read more here.
