Clever Badges, SSO, Google and Azure

[bytingtheapple]

Hey folks - I'm Dan, one of the Clever founders. I'm so sorry that GDPR compliance issues have kept us from being able to offer our service in the EU.

 

I have some good news to share - we've been doing some work with our lawyers & it looks like GDPR compliance is in sight. If you're up for it, I'd love to chat with you about what Clever would need to do to properly localize to the UK/EU market. Shoot me a note (my first name @ clever.com) so we can find a time!

[Ditto]

Hi Dan, this sounds like promising news. I will be in touch soon. Hopefully @Scorpio can make contact too as he had a live working system.

[Scorpio]

Hi Dan

 

This is great news, we had it running at one of the schools and now looking to use elsewhere too.

 

Let me know when you know more.

 

Thanks

 

S

[fiza]

Has there been any update from Clever since September?

[Blutarsky]

Yes, I had an interview in October with Cleverbadges chairman, Mr. Carrol, who states they're working to get GDPR compliance. I hope he reads this and may give us some news...

[fiza]

I have had a demo from Wonde and saw them at BETT. Will be implementing their magic badges. Cost is not too bad. Clever also replied to me and said the same about gdpr.

[Blutarsky]

Mee too same demo. Hope Clever badges makes a move

[TechMonkey]

I have had a demo from Wonde and saw them at BETT. Will be implementing their magic badges. Cost is not too bad. Clever also replied to me and said the same about gdpr.

Word of warning about Wonde badges, unless something major has changed they have to become your SSO provider. This means if you use say AzureAD to SSO your Google logins then you would have to break this link. They are also bad at remembering this as we went all the way to implementation, checking that they did not have to take over our SSO all the way, before the engineer took one look and had to stop as we already had an SSO. Was very frustrating.

[fiza]

Luckily the school do not have SSO on place already.

[Blutarsky]

@TechMonkey, did you have the privilege to put your hands on Clever Badges?

[TechMonkey]

@TechMonkey, did you have the privilege to put your hands on Clever Badges?

 

I have not yet, but due to the GDPR issues I didn't pursue it.

[Scorpio]

Hi Dan

 

Do we have any updates on the UK use of Clever Badges, we haven't heard from you since your posting. Please advise.

 

Thanks

 

S

[fiza]

I wrote them an email earlier this month. Below is the response.

 

At this point, we're still evaluating our compliance strategy with GDPR so we're pausing on allowing European districts to use our platform. We'll let you know if anything changes.

[bytingtheapple]

Hi everyone! I'm sorry about the lack of response for a while... we just had our first baby & I was off on leave (and was hoping to make it to BETT, but my wiser half helped me realize that bringing a newborn across the pond in January wasn't the best idea).

 

As mentioned above, our current policy is that we can't support Europe due to GDPR. I appreciate your patience & thoughts on how local solutions are working out.

 

Two hopeful aspects:

1. GDPR compliance is planned for 2020 - right now looking like mid to late 2020.

2. Perhaps with Brexit, GDPR is no longer relevant for the UK? If anyone knows the answer to this - I'd love a link to some information.

[fiza]

In short yes GDPR is still relevant post Brexit.

 

Here is a link that would be useful for you.

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2020/01/statement-on-data-protection-and-brexit-implementation-what-you-need-to-do/

 

https://www.itgovernance.co.uk/eu-gdpr-uk-dpa-2018-uk-gdpr

Edited February 14, 2020 by fiza

[Ditto]

Firstly, congratulations on the birth of your first child - I hope all is well and you're not suffering too much sleep deprivation!

As confirmed by @fiza, GDPR will remaining in place both now and in future. With trade (and, no doubt, other) deals being negotiated now with the EU whilst we are in a transition period, I believe GDPR is expected to be fully a part of our future. In terms of a US companies meeting EU and British requirements, I thought this could be achieved by self certifying and meeting EU-U.S. Privacy Shield requirements. A couple of links that represent UK and then U.S. authorities viewpoint.

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/eu-us-privacy-shield/

https://www.privacyshield.gov/Program-Overview

 

There have been one or two articles that have made me question whether Privacy Shield unequivocally meets GDPR requirements and I have come across an increasing number of US websites blocking access and quoting GDPR as the reason. This has baffled me when it's a news website as I'm not actively providing personal information. Perhaps my IP address is being collected and that counts? Or perhaps another legal concern has arisen?

 

So, do you believe you are compliant with EU-U.S. privacy shield requirements and could you self-certify?

 

Alternatively, where do you store they data? For example, if you use Azure, AWS or Google cloud, could you ensure all EU (and Swiss, UK, EEA countries etc.) data is stored in EU locations. I would think this could simplify life by avoiding data transfer to the U.S.

Finally, I have no legal qualifications, just an enquiring mind and an interest in this area as well as a keeness to see CleverBadges available to UK schools, especially as I see schools going to that 'other lot' that have an inferior, shall we say 'replica', of your service!

Edited February 15, 2020 by Ditto

[Blutarsky]

Just a question out of the blue, why does it takes so long to get compliant to GDPR?

 

In my opinion, at this point, it would be more acceptable for customers to know from Clever that either there are no plans to support EU schools, or that a plan exists, and the exact due date is xx/xx/xx.

 

Otherwise keeping replying with generic answers, sounds unprofessional, with the risk for Clever to fall behind Wonde, loosing potential customers.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Blutarsky

[Ditto]

Just a question out of the blue, why does it takes so long to get compliant to GDPR?

In my opinion, at this point, it would be more acceptable for customers to know from Clever that either there are no plans to support EU schools, or that a plan exists, and the exact due date is xx/xx/xx.

Otherwise keeping replying with generic answers, sounds unprofessional, with the risk for Clever to fall behind Wonde, loosing potential customers.

I'm sure @bytingtheapple will respond soon, but I believe there are some who believe Privacy Shield doesn't achieve GDPR regulations - it's an area that I'm still to draw a clear conclusion. How articles such as this one

https://iapp.org/news/a/european-parliament-voted-to-suspend-privacy-shield-now-what/show that it's a tricky topic and no absolute clarity - I guess as with so much of law. I think this might be why some U.S. companies are being cautious at the moment.

[Scorpio]

Hi,

 

Do we have an update on this?

 

I know its been a massive set back with Covid, but would like to see where Clever got to with this for the UK?

 

Looking forward to a reply as we have numerous schools awaiting this.

 

Thanks

 

S

[Ditto]

I agree, there's a few of us hoping for positive news on this. @bytingtheapple, firstly I hope you and all your family and colleagues are keeping well and safe. Any update on offering Clever products to the UK market and getting past the GDPR challenges?

[Odyssey]

Hi all,

 

This forum was brought to my attention after discussions with other educators this morning and question marks around SSO and GDPR compliance in the UK. I'm not sure if you have been made aware of ClassLink but the product is fully gdpr compliant SSO and they're at BETT every year so may be worthwhile checking out?

[Ditto]

Hi all,

 

This forum was brought to my attention after discussions with other educators this morning and question marks around SSO and GDPR compliance in the UK. I'm not sure if you have been made aware of ClassLink but the product is fully gdpr compliant SSO and they're at BETT every year so may be worthwhile checking out?

 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Putting this thread to one side for the moment, do you provide a QR badge approach to sign in for the youngest learners, something that competes with Clever badges or Wonde's alternative? Or another solution that achieves similar?

[Odyssey]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Putting this thread to one side for the moment, do you provide a QR badge approach to sign in for the youngest learners, something that competes with Clever badges or Wonde's alternative? Or another solution that achieves similar?

 

Yes, QR codes, facial recognition and where necessary even remote login in the most extreme circumstances.

 

It's really quite a comprehensive product from automating network account creation to 3rd party account creation too among other tools.

 

It's been going for over 22 years in the US and in the UK coming up for a year.

[Blutarsky]

Great news! Will look into it

[ChilliDave]

Hi All,

 

Appreciate this is quite an old thread - but just wondering what people are doing to assist KS1 students login to Windows Devices bound to Azure AD? A lot of parties we've spoken to say they support Windows, but only AFTER the login! This isn't the issue. I'm piloting Azure AD and InTune devices as we speak and it's great - I'm very hesitant to continue ADDS joining devices or even adopting the hybrid approach - however, if there's no nice way to leverage QR/emoji auth on them for the younger learners, might have to get more creative!

 

Cheers!