Privacy concerns about Google products are nothing new, and the company regularly faces scrutiny for many countries about its data collection and advertising practices.
So after Denmark and the Dutch government decided to restrict the use of Google Chrome and ChromeOS in schools due to data privacy issues.
The Dutch Ministry of Education has placed restrictions on the use of Chrome and ChromeOS in schools until at least August 2023. This movement started for many reasons. One of them is that no one knows how much data is collected from students and shared with advertising partners. Of course for a long time there has been no transparency about where the data is actually stored.
The Ministry's investigators they signed a letter to the Dutch Parliament explaining their concerns and recommended that immediate measures be taken for privacy and data security when using the aforementioned Google products. They also said they held meetings with several major tech companies, including Google, Microsoft and Zoom, about data protection and the need to increase transparency about how user data is used by their respective products.
Google has agreed to release new versions of Chrome and ChromeOS by next year, promising that they will comply better στις απαιτήσεις του Ολλανδικού εκπαιδευτικού τομέα. Οι ερευνητές θα εξετάσουν αυτές τις εκδόσεις κατά την κυκλοφορία πριν τους δωθεί το πράσινο light.
Until August 2023, schools can still use existing versions of Chrome and ChromeOS, provided they implement all security and privacy measures recommended by the Dutch Ministry of Education.