As K-12 schools grapple with the enormous responsibility of safeguarding personal information, one area that has presented a challenge is effectively managing communications among parents, students, and educators. Districts often turn to technology to enhance and streamline those efforts, but there is inherent risk in transferring personally identifiable data (PII) to EdTech vendors. To ensure the safeguarding of data for K-12 schools, SchoolDay has partnered with Vonage to provide a robust solution for EdTech vendors to protect sensitive data: Tokenized CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service).
What Is Tokenization?
Tokenization is the process of replacing sensitive data with unique identification symbols – tokens – that retain essential information without compromising security. The tokens are meaningless outside of the context in which they are used, ensuring that the actual data remains safe from unauthorized access. For example, instead of storing a parent’s phone number directly, a token is generated to represent that phone number, which can only be mapped back to the original data by the tokenization system.
Why Is Tokenized CPaaS Crucial in K-12 Schools?
School districts are responsible for a vast amount of personally identifiable information, including names, phone numbers, and addresses of students and parents. Sharing this data with edtech vendors for communications purposes can expose it to significant risks. Tokenization resolves this issue by ensuring data privacy. By using tokenization, school districts can ensure that the sensitive information they collect is not shared with third parties. Not only does this ensure compliance with privacy regulations such as FERPA but it can significantly reduce the risk of a data breach.
How SchoolDay and Vonage Work Together to Leverage Tokenized CPaaS to Enhance Communication and Security in K-12 Schools
Vonage, a leader in cloud hosted API based communications, has embraced tokenization for its CPaaS offering in the education sector. Together, SchoolDay and Vonage offer the first commercially available Tokenized CPaaS solution in education, enabling schools to send SMS, voice, and email communications without exposing their PII. For example, a school can notify parents about upcoming events or emergency alerts, with all communications routed through tokens rather than actual contact information. This significantly reduces the risk of data breaches and enhances overall security.
Empowering EdTech Vendors
The combined API-based solution from SchoolDay and Vonage empowers EdTech platforms to connect with users faster by focusing on the experience and unique value, without the need for onsite expertise to manage complex communications technologies and data management. As a result, schools can engage with their students, faculty, and parents in a safe and interactive environment using trusted video and voice communications embedded within the learning applications.
