For a moment it seemed that the Minister of Education, Culture and Science wanted to ban Google Chrome from Dutch schools. That was reportedly a decision of Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf. That turns out not to be quite the case; but what exactly is going on at the moment?
Google is used to it by now: the company often has to deal with problems concerning privacy and applicable rules. Last weekend it suddenly came out that ChromeOS and the company’s Chrome browser would be banned in Dutch schools. But that story is not entirely true.
Google at Dutch schools
To the editors of BleepingComputer, a Google representative let it be known that those products are therefore not banned. Schools can continue to use the search engine and browser, provided they take extra steps to protect student privacy. At least that must be done by August 2023.
Click/tap for larger (Image: Pixabay/ Google, edit: OMT)
Indeed, by that time, Google must have released updates for the aforementioned products, which must comply with the AVG law. That abbreviation stands for General Data Protection Regulation. This is evident from a letter recently sent by Minister Dijkgraaf and Minister Wiersma, of Primary and Secondary Education.
What needs to be done?
The idea is for schools to ensure that personal ads are turned off and that all cloud data is actually stored in Europe. Spell checking and automatic translations of websites must also be turned off. And so a number of other conditions have been drawn up (.pdf).
So the problems for schools, students and Google don’t seem to be as big as initially thought. But what this news does make clear is that all parties have some work to do to make things run smoothly. The American company has some work to do to meet European standards, while schools and students have to make sure they are safe online.
