{"id":206071,"date":"2026-03-05T19:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T19:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206071\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T19:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T19:54:07","slug":"california-agency-fines-company-for-violating-ed-tech-privacy-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206071\/","title":{"rendered":"California Agency Fines Company For Violating Ed Tech Privacy Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published in CalMatters.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Before they could attend school football games or school plays, high school students across California had to give their personal information over to a ticketing platform, GoFan, which then sold that data to advertisers, state privacy regulators said. The parent company PlayOn, which has contracted with roughly 1,400 California schools, repeatedly violated state privacy law in 2023 and 2024, according to a January disciplinary order<\/a> filed by the state\u2019s privacy protection agency.<\/p>\n

The California Privacy Protection Agency, sometimes known as CalPrivacy, announced the order Tuesday, saying it is fining PlayOn $1.1 million for failing to give students and families a way to opt out of their data collection.<\/p>\n

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PlayOn offers a slew of online products that coordinate ticket and merchandise sales for schools and youth sports organizations, along with other services, such as fundraising and streaming. Its subsidiaries include GoFan, MaxPreps, and NFHS Network, which are used by school districts stretching from Los Angeles and San Diego to Modoc, Mono, and Sierra counties, the order says. The company\u2019s annual gross revenue is over $26 million.<\/p>\n

When users tried to access tickets for school events through one of PlayOn\u2019s platforms, GoFan, a pop-up appeared, prompting the ticket-holder to agree to the company\u2019s privacy policy, which allowed the sale of personal data. There was no way to say no, the order said: The pop-up obscured the screen so that it was impossible to access the ticket without agreeing to the company\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents trying to go to prom or a high school football game shouldn\u2019t have to leave their privacy rights at the door,\u201d said Michael Macko, CalPrivacy\u2019s head of enforcement, in a press release Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t attend these events without showing your ticket, and you couldn\u2019t show your ticket without being tracked for advertising. California\u2019s privacy law does not work that way. Businesses must ensure they offer lawful ways for Californians to opt-out, particularly with captive audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related<\/a><\/p>\n

Leadership, Data, Family Engagement: How My California School Turned a Corner<\/p>\n

PlayOn \u201cdoes not admit liability for any violation\u201d of state law, according to the disciplinary order, which effectively functions as a settlement agreement. The order also notes that the company significantly changed its privacy policy in December 2024, allowing users to opt out of data collection, bringing the company into compliance with the state law. These data privacy matters have been \u201cfully resolved\u201d since then, said James Dickinson, the company\u2019s senior vice president of marketing, in an email.<\/p>\n

The fine is the first time that the state privacy agency has gone after a company for violating the rights of students and schools, according to the press release. The agency formed in 2020 when voters backed a statewide proposition<\/a> calling for increased enforcement of data privacy laws.<\/p>\n

Exceptions to California\u2019s privacy law<\/p>\n

California has some of the strongest data privacy laws in the country, including a landmark 2018 law that requires large for-profit companies to give users a relatively easy way to opt out of data collection or delete their data.<\/p>\n

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Enforcing the law can prove tricky though. Last year, a CalMatters investigation<\/a> found that more than 30 companies made it difficult for customers to exercise their privacy rights. While the companies were technically abiding by the law, which requires them to give customers a way to delete their information, they used special code to hide that information from Google search results.<\/p>\n

The 2018 law also has a number of exceptions, including for non-profit organizations and for companies that buy, sell or share data from less than 100,000 California residents or households.<\/p>\n

The state privacy agency is responsible for enforcing the law. In the past 12 months, the agency has found violations by the menswear company Todd Snyder<\/a>, the rural supply retailer Tractor Supply Co<\/a>. and the automaker Honda<\/a>, each resulting in fines ranging from $345,000 to $1.35 million. In January, the state said in a press release <\/a>that it fined Datamasters, a data broker, for selling the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of \u201cmillions of people with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, drug addiction, bladder incontinence, and other health conditions for targeted advertising.\u201d The broker also traded data on individuals\u2019 perceived race, political views and banking activity.<\/p>\n

California has additional protections regarding the collection and sale of students\u2019 data, but those laws do not necessarily include apps and services used outside of the classroom, even when that technology is a de facto requirement for participation in school sports or extracurriculars. Assemblymember Dawn Addis<\/a>, a San Luis Obispo Democrat, introduced a bill this year that would expand the number of tech companies who need to abide by California education privacy rules, but the laws could still leave out many popular student services, CalMatters reported<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

PlayOn did not respond to questions about its compliance with California school privacy law. The PlayOn privacy policy<\/a> says it doesn\u2019t collect personal information from \u201cminors under the age of 16 without proper consent\u201d but it doesn\u2019t mention anything about students who are age 16 or 17.<\/p>\n

Related<\/a><\/p>\n

New Data Shows More Districts Are Adopting AI but Still Need a Coherent Strategy<\/p>\n

California law prohibits companies from selling all K-12 students\u2019 data, regardless of their age.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was originally published in CalMatters. This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1804,61772,71324,18912,7447,95174,88667,95175,95176],"class_list":{"0":"post-206071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-company","12":"tag-data-collection","13":"tag-data-privacy","14":"tag-high-school-students","15":"tag-personal-information","16":"tag-playon","17":"tag-privacy-law","18":"tag-privacy-policy","19":"tag-state-privacy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}