Microsoft's move in the AI school debate: controls over how student data gets used
A week after New York City announced a one-year moratorium on AI in public schools, Microsoft announced it’ll be giving every school district in the country the option to dictate its own AI privacy and safety rules within its contracts—and the unions behind the deal say they want OpenAI and Anthropic to sign on next.
TL;DR
- Microsoft will allow school districts to embed AI privacy and safety rules directly into their contracts.
- The new "National AI Safety & Privacy Standard" will be legally enforceable.
- Companies cannot use student data to train AI models, track students, or let AI make unsupervised decisions.
- School districts can cancel contracts and seek damages for rule violations.
- The standard includes 10 enforceable protections, such as banning data sales for advertising and requiring breach reporting.
- Unions are pushing OpenAI and Anthropic to adopt similar agreements.
- Protections take effect November 1st for all districts Microsoft works with.