We are excited about the closing of the merger between Anthology and Blackboard and being part of Anthology’s next chapter. At the same time, we understand that a merger of two companies can raise questions and concerns about the privacy and security practices. We want to be very clear: We may be a new, combined company, but our commitments to high data privacy and security standards have not and will not change. Anthology is bound by Blackboard’s and Anthology’s commitments in the privacy notices and contracts with their clients. Specifically, this means:
- Our clients own their data. We understand that personal information of our clients’ users is only entrusted to us. We have a responsibility to protect it vigilantly and only use it in accordance with all applicable data privacy laws and as agreed with our clients.
- We believe data privacy is a fundamental right for all individuals. We have a dedicated data privacy program that uses the high EU data privacy standards globally and has privacy by design at its heart.
- We will not sell student data. We will not sell student personal information to third parties or data brokers or use or disclose student personal information for targeted advertising purposes. Our clients’ personal information will continue to be protected and only used in accordance with the existing agreements with our clients and applicable data privacy laws.
- We help our product teams to enable data-informed student success. Data-driven insights, personalization and data privacy do not have to be incompatible. With privacy by design, they can go hand in hand. We will continue to work closely with our product teams to help develop this vision in a secure and privacy-friendly way.
- Protecting our clients’ data from security threats is a key priority. We have several products with security certifications such as FedRAMP and ISO 27001 and we will continue to certify more products both for security and privacy standards.
We will keep you updated as we further enhance our privacy and security programs. If you have any feedback, suggestions or questions in the meantime, please feel free to email us at privacy@blackboard.com or DPO@anthology.com.
