Key Takeaways
- Safety, Privacy, and Security cannot be treated in isolation—effective student protection requires integrating all three into technology design, policy, and implementation.
- No single organization can solve these challenges alone; meaningful progress depends on cooperation between schools, tech providers, and government agencies.
- Safeguarding should be proactive and embedded in edtech systems from the start, balancing harm prevention with transparency, trust, and real-world constraints like budgets and staffing.
Student safety, privacy, and security are often discussed separately in education technology, but in practice, they are deeply interconnected. Schools must prevent harm in digital environments while safeguarding unprecedented amounts of sensitive student data. Technology providers must design tools that enable early intervention without eroding trust. State agencies must balance policy, budget realities, instructional priorities, and public expectations.
No single organization can solve these challenges alone.
That is why 1EdTech’s Student Security Task Force exists: to bring diverse perspectives together in one place to openly debate tensions, share expertise, and develop practical solutions that protect students in real-world education environments.
“Leading one of the largest global student safety platforms has reinforced a simple truth: protecting students online requires the whole ecosystem to work together,” said Tim Levy, Managing Director of Qoria. “No single organization has all the answers. 1EdTech provides the trusted space to convene educators, technology providers, and policymakers so we can collaborate on solutions that meaningfully improve student safety.”
Aligning Safeguarding With System Design
For organizations like SWGfL, whose charitable mission centers on preventing harm online, the task force provides a critical forum to ensure safeguarding is built into educational technology systems, not layered on after deployment. Their experience with filtering and monitoring has shown that harm prevention must be proactive, and that aligning safeguarding expectations with system design is essential to meaningful impact.
“Filtering and monitoring, when implemented well, are safeguarding tools rather than surveillance mechanisms, and clarity on this distinction is essential,” said David Wright, CEO of SWGfL. “Through the task force, I hope to support standards and guidance that help schools identify risk early, respond appropriately, and protect students effectively, while maintaining trust with learners, families, and educators.”
The task force moves these conversations beyond theory and into how platforms are actually designed, integrated, and used in schools.
Elevating Student Safety Alongside Privacy and Security
For student safety providers, participation reflects a core belief: digital safety must remain a visible, ongoing priority. While privacy and cybersecurity are essential, safety can sometimes be overshadowed in technical conversations.
As one participant shared, making the internet safer for children is both a professional mission and a personal one. The task force creates space to ensure that safety remains an equal pillar in technology discussions—addressed alongside privacy and security rather than in competition with them.
“Through my experience at work and my own daughter's interaction with technology, I see both the incredible advantages and dangers that technology poses,” said Harrison Parker, Executive Vice President of North America for Linewize. “I'm thrilled to participate with an equally passionate group of educational experts and technologists to make the Internet a safer place for our students and children.”
“There is nothing more important than student safety and mental health, and I am excited to participate in the task force,” said Jeff Patterson, Founder and CEO of Gaggle. “Educators and policy makers will benefit from standards on how student concerns are surfaced and guidance on best practices for responding to the incidents.”
“We need a community approach to this important work,” added Tammy Wincup, CEO of Securly. “It’s easy to work in silos, but we must have relationships across the tech and education industry to truly put students first.”
By bringing together all stakeholders, the task force helps break down those silos. By working side-by-side with state agencies, school systems, and other technology providers in a standards-based environment, taskforce members demonstrate a shared commitment to student well-being that extends beyond individual products or platforms.
Bringing a State Education Perspective
From the vantage point of a state education agency like the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), student well-being, safety, and privacy are foundational and increasingly complex. Digital tools are embedded in daily operations, and districts must balance security expectations, limited budgets, staffing constraints, AI considerations, and growing public scrutiny around screen time and digital use.
Student protection cannot be addressed through compliance with a single policy alone. It requires coordinated decisions across privacy, interoperability, procurement, instructional design, and fiscal responsibility.
“At NCDPI, we support districts through many managed services, privacy guidance, and AI considerations. I aim to help advance approaches to student safety that balance privacy, fiscal responsibility, instructional quality, and student well-being so that technology decisions support educators, students and families without creating burdens on schools,” said Vanessa Wrenn, Chief Information Officer for NCDPI.
The task force provides a venue where those practical realities can inform broader standards and guidance.
Moving Toward Practical, Proportionate Solutions
At its core, the Student Security Task Force is focused on advancing solutions that are both protective and proportionate, prioritizing harm prevention while remaining transparent, limited in scope, and grounded in trust.
As a trusted, neutral convener of institutions, state agencies, software and hardware providers, and policymakers, 1EdTech plays a critical role in connecting safeguarding goals to technical standards, system design, and interoperability. As responsibility for student protection is shared across technology providers, educators and governments, the coordination between all these groups is essential. By bringing them together, the task force hopes to move the conversation from abstract debate to practical, scalable action.
A Shared Responsibility
Protecting students in digital environments is no longer optional. But neither is protecting their privacy and dignity.
The Student Security Task Force recognizes that these goals are not mutually exclusive, and that achieving both requires collaboration across the entire education technology community. Through dialogue, standards development, and shared guidance, 1EdTech is helping ensure that student safety is not an afterthought, but a foundational design principle embedded across the ecosystem.
When diverse perspectives come together, practical solutions follow—and students benefit.
1EdTech Contributing Members are welcome to join the task force by filling out this interest form.
Anyone interested in becoming a Contributing Member can learn more here.
About the Author
As Senior Vice President of Ecosystems and Membership Development for 1EdTech, Jeanette Wiseman supports engagement across the 1EdTech community and helps ensure all members are positioned to lead and thrive in a connected, standards-driven community. Her work is grounded in a long-standing commitment to equity and access, informed by more than two decades working across education and technology and a career that began in the classroom.