Popular education technology platforms tick the boxes for education, but for privacy and security? Not so much. Rachel Stickland’s two children have been the victims of data breaches — not once, but twice. Last year, their information was stolen when the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was hacked. One month later, it happened again when the education technology platform Edmodo was penetrated. Stickland was particularly upset about the Edmodo incident because she found out about it from a news report, rather than from the company or her children’s school. The Colorado mother believes it was only her kids’ names and email addresses that were accessed, but the fact that cybercriminals can see them is disturbing. When it comes to cyber hacks, other children haven’t been so lucky. More than 1 million children were victims of identity theft in 2017, resulting in $2.6 billion in losses, according to Javelin Strategy & Research. Children have no prior credit — just clean slates — so their identity is much more valuable than an adult’s to criminals. And because the Social Security Administration began using a “randomization” method in 2011, a child’s assigned social security number (SSN) is no longer tied to his or her date of birth and geographic location. This allows thieves to create an entirely synthetic identity with a child’s SSN, signing up for credit cards, obtaining loans or even mortgages and filing fraudulent tax returns. Many times parents don’t find out what has happened until their children turn 18, at which point their credit scores are ruined. | 