This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A proposal to restrict the kinds of information that can be collected and stored by Utah schools earned committee approval Monday.

Bill sponsor Rep. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi, said HB169 is intended to establish "guardrails" along the highway of student and child records.

The would separate data and information into three categories — allowable, optional and prohibited — and in many cases would require parental consent before collection.

"We've left a lot of the decision-making with the State Office [of Education] to define thresholds for each of these," Anderegg said.

Last year, a similar bill by Anderegg earned the opposition of educators, who worried the restrictions went too far and put schools in a position of choosing between state and federal law.

That bill received committee approval but ultimately stalled in the House.

But on Monday, some of those same education groups sat beside Anderegg and indicated support for HB169 and the bargain it strikes between student privacy and school accountability.

"He's been able to help us find that appropriate balance," said Judy Park, state associate superintendent.

Tami Pyfer, education adviser to Gov. Gary Herbert, said the governor's office had been actively involved with Anderegg in preparing the bill.

At issue, she said, are the competing interests of protecting children and providing accurate measurements to the public on how taxpayer dollars are being spent.

"We have spent months looking at the language in this bill," Pyfer said. "This is a very high priority from the governor to get this bill right."

Anderegg said that allowable information would include a student's grades and attendance, as well as some demographic information like ethnicity, which is often used for reporting at the state level.

Optional information — requiring a parent's consent under the bill — includes other demographic data, medical records and any remediation efforts for a student.

Included in the prohibited category is information about a student's religious beliefs, political affiliation, criminal history and biometric identifiers like DNA and fingerprints.

"Anything that is specific to your biology that can uniquely identify you," Anderegg said.

He said the bill goes further than existing state and federal privacy laws, like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, because those laws deal with the sharing of student data between agencies, but are silent on generation of data by school administrators.

"It does not address, at all, what data can be collected," Anderegg said.

State school board Chairman David Crandall said many state and federal programs require data reporting from schools.

The school board has not taken a position on HB169 and Crandall had not yet had a chance to review the latest changes on Monday, but he said he was encouraged by the discussions held between Anderegg and state education managers.

"He's definitely working to make it so that it works with the federal requirements and is workable for districts and for charter schools," Crandall said.

The bill was approved by a unanimous vote of the House Education Committee. It will now go before the full House for consideration.