The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

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By Sara Randazzo

May 22 (Reuters) - A provocative pop-up greets visitors to a small Texas law firm's website: "Has your child been harmed by their school-issued laptop or tablet?" it asks. "Parents assume that Chromebooks and iPads issued by their kids' schools are safe, but they are not."

Hundreds of parents have responded to the intake form, according to Julie Liddell, one half of the husband-wife duo behind the Austin-based plaintiffs' law firm, the EdTech Law Center. The lawyers are working to channel data privacy and mental-health concerns about education technology—which has become ubiquitous in U.S. classrooms—into lawsuits.

Their work is part of a broader wave of anti-ed tech sentiment that’s sweeping the country, as parents question why children sit in classrooms on devices that often give direct access to the distractions and harms of the internet. Digital education tools are also under scrutiny, with many asking whether they teach better than traditional methods.

But how does all of that skepticism translate into litigation?

TAKING TECH TO COURT

Liddell and her husband, Andrew Liddell, left careers in government and BigLaw to try to find out. They’ve filed a dozen lawsuits since starting EdTech Law Center in 2023, using both data-privacy and product liability laws to try to undercut education technology's hold.

The vast majority of school districts provide a laptop or tablet for each student, which are used for everything from reading lessons to virtual biology dissections. Students spent an average of 79 minutes per day on screens, according to a recent report from Lightspeed Systems.

The lawyers say they've been inspired by another wave of cases against Big Tech, those accusing social media platforms of designing addictive products that harm children. Meta Platforms on Thursday became the final defendant to settle one such case brought by a school district that had been slated to serve as a test case of districts' claims. A Los Angeles jury in March awarded $6 million to an individual plaintiff in a similar case.

Working on contingency, the Liddells are seeking monetary damages for their clients, as well as design changes from the tech companies, to both give parents greater control over when data is collected and prevent children from being exposed to potential harms.

Andrew Liddell, who previously worked as a patent lawyer at Duane Morris, said he believes federal laws have been improperly interpreted to allow school districts to broadly consent on behalf of parents to collect student data.

Offering a hypothetical, he likened it to if an outside vendor waltzed into a school's front office, rifled through the nurse's filing cabinets and attendance records and left. No one would stand for that, he said, "but that's happening right now, but only invisibly and at this massive scale."

Most of the cases are still in the early stages or embroiled in procedural disputes, with one data-privacy case dismissed by a federal judge for failing to show concrete harm or misuse of data.

In December, EdTech Law Center and three other firms filed a proposed class action against Curriculum Associates in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, alleging it improperly collected and profited from student data without parental permission. The company, which makes an English and math assessment tool called iReady used by 17 million students, said it doesn't sell student data or use it for advertising, and that its main focus is helping teachers support student learning.

Lawyers for Curriculum Associates in court filings called the claims anti-tech advocacy not suitable for the court system, an argument echoed by other defendants.

"This case represents the most recent chapter in Plaintiffs' and their counsel's ideologically motivated crusade to use the courts—rather than the legislative process—to change how technology is used in schools," Curriculum Associates said in a February motion to dismiss.

Nicki Petrossi, an anti-tech advocate and plaintiff in several of the Liddells' cases, including against Curriculum Associates, said data privacy concerns aren't typically the first complaint she hears from parents. As she's learned more, however, Petrossi said she's come to believe student data is being used for commercial purposes and that litigation is a path to reform.

"I think that having a legal decision proving that we need parental consent, true informed parental consent, will cause the schools to be more specific and careful about what platforms they even contract with," said Petrossi, who pulled her kids from public schools in Fullerton, Calif., to attend a classical charter school that eschews technology.

In addition to the data-privacy proposed class actions, the Liddells have sued on behalf of families who say their children experienced physical or mental harms from school devices.

Those include one family blaming Alphabet's Google for their son developing a debilitating pornography addiction from his school-issued Chromebook. In court filings, Google's attorneys at Perkins Coie argued the claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 federal law that generally protects online platforms from liability over user-generated content, and that the family can't sue for emotional harms and mental distress under products-liability law, among other defenses. The company didn't respond to a request for comment.

BIGLAW PUSHBACK

The Liddells have partnered with larger law firms, including Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro in Seattle and Morgan & Morgan in Florida, to file many of their cases. They've hired a small staff but have yet to receive a payday from any of the cases.

The education technology companies they're suing, meanwhile, have retained some of the country's largest law firms to aggressively push back.

Kirkland & Ellis, for instance, filed a motion for sanctions against the Liddells on behalf of PowerSchool after discovering that plaintiffs in the case hadn't actually used the product. Kirkland lawyers noted that PowerSchool spent "nearly two years and millions of dollars" to uncover the details. A federal judge rejected the sanctions request, and the case is set for a class certification hearing in August. The Liddells blamed the confusion in part on PowerSchool practices they say make it difficult for parents to know if their children are using the product.

A PowerSchool spokeswoman said the complaint's claims are inaccurate and that it protects student data in accordance with all laws and the contracts it strikes with school districts.

For all the legal headwinds, Julie Liddell sees a shift in how Americans think about the companies behind their children's screens.

"It’s in the zeitgeist now that Big Tech is not looking out for us and our kids," she said.