Protecting Your Child’s Data

Kyle Google

When it comes to safety and protecting your digital content online, Google has one of the best track records. Google has recently created a website(http://www.google.com/edu/trust/) to address how they keep you and your children’s data safe from people who would like to steal or use the data for their own profit. Google has vowed that they do not use the data from their educational customers to sell ads.

The main areas they strive to protect their educational customers are:

  1. Family safety – this page, which provides detail on the security of our services to schools, you can find guidance and tips for keeping families safe online in our Family Safety Center.
  2. No ads in Google Apps For Education services – There are no ads in Google Apps for Education services and they have no plans to change this in the future. Additionally, K-12 Google Apps for Education users do not see ads when they use Google Search and are signed in to their Apps for Education accounts. Read more about this topic.
  3. Data ownership – Google does not own any of the data that your child is uploading to Google. Students can always take their data with them.
  4. Data protection – Google does not sell data to third parties. Read more about Information Sharing

And much more. Google is committed to keeping your child’s Google Apps data contained within the Google ecosystem. Read all about their commitment to safety here: http://www.google.com/edu/trust/

Heartbleed bug update

vschwoebel Veracross

You may have heard of the Heartbleed bug that has affected the security of various websites. Essentially, the security bug poses a risk to websites that use an SSL certificate, and most sites recommend you change your password for security. For more detailed information, please check out CNET’s expensive coverage, with websites outside of FCS here.

What was affected at FCS?

We are happy to report that commonly used websites at FCS, such as Veracross and friendscentral.org, are monitored closely and any outstanding issue from Heartbleed was resolved. While the friendscentral.org site was not affected, our representatives at Veracross recommend a password change, due to the number of sites that were affected.

One of the sites affected was Google, which includes Gmail. Students at FCS do have a Google account, so it is recommended they change their passwords. If you are using a Gmail account, we also recommend you change your password.

Change your Veracross password

Again, Veracross recommends every user change their password, which you can do when logged into Veracross. Simply click on the Change Password link at the top right of the home page, and follow the steps to reset your password.

Change Password

 

If you’ve forgotten your Veracross username or password, you can easily retrieve that information from their site here, in order to log in and reset your password.