Education committee advances bill to bar campaigns from harvesting student data in schools

The Education Committee on a voice vote advanced Senate Bill 212 (LC473473 S), a measure its sponsor said is designed to stop political campaigns from entering K–12 schools under false pretenses to collect minors' personal data.

Senator Still, the bill sponsor, told the committee the measure is “affectionately referred to as protecting the information of minors in public schools” and said the provision grew from incidents in multiple school districts where campaigns were alleged to have collected student information without registering that data with the Secretary of State.

The bill defines and narrows the conduct targeted, the sponsor said, and includes substitute language added in negotiation with Senate Democratic leaders to ensure ordinary school events are not swept in. “We saw this happen in Fulton County, Gwinnett County, Forsyth County, firsthand,” Senator Still said during his presentation. The sponsor directed members to the substitute language at lines 42–55 that he said was drafted with Senate Democratic Minority Leader Senator Estevez to avoid unintentionally restricting typical school activities.

Committee members asked how the bill would affect parents, volunteers and nonprofit-led voter registration drives. Senator Still and the sponsor said parents and volunteers who attend or are invited to school events are protected when they participate in their individual capacity; the bill targets solicitation conducted under false pretenses or where a campaign requests directories or other student data for recruitment or political use. The sponsor said nonprofits will be allowed to continue lawful voter-registration activities so long as those drives are properly registered with the Secretary of State and coordinated with school administration.

A committee member raised a practical example about career day and whether a parent who is also a candidate would be able to distribute campaign materials. The sponsor replied that being a parent invited to speak is not the same as a campaign solicitation: "If your campaign wanted it, and I was soliciting that information, FERPA does protect that, but it doesn't prevent someone from going under a false pretense to do that. And that's the whole point of this bill," he said.

With no public speakers signed up on the measure, a committee member moved to approve the bill, a second was recorded, and the chair called the voice vote. The motion carried and the sponsor confirmed Chairman Todd Jones will carry the measure in the House.

The bill record notes the committee is working from substitute LC473473 S; committee debate referenced FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) as the federal privacy framework implicated by the incidents described by the sponsor.