Kazani v. EduPassion, LLC et al

On August 8, 2025, Alex Kazani, a California parent, filed a class-action lawsuit against EduPassion, LLC and its subsidiary SmartTutor, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges that EduPassion's popular "SmartTutor" AI platform, used by over 800,000 K-12 students nationwide, surreptitiously collected sensitive biometric data including voice recordings, keystroke dynamics, and eye-movement patterns through webcam and microphone access without explicit parental consent. The data was allegedly utilized to refine commercial emotion-detection algorithms and shared with third-party marketing firms. The lawsuit asserts violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), California's Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA), and common law privacy rights. The named plaintiff seeks statutory damages, injunctive relief to halt data collection, and destruction of all unlawfully obtained information. EduPassion promptly issued a statement asserting that all data collection was anonymized and complied with existing contracts and privacy policies, framing the suit as an attack on educational innovation. The litigation marks one of the first major legal challenges to AI data practices in K-12 education following the Biden administration's 2024 executive order on AI.

In April 2026, the court denied EduPassion's motion to dismiss, allowing the COPPA and SOPIPA claims to proceed to discovery. In May 2026, the parties reached a preliminary nationwide settlement under which EduPassion agreed to pay $15.8 million into a compensation fund, permanently delete all contested biometric data, and implement an independent privacy monitor for three years. The settlement is pending final court approval and is expected to be finalized in late 2026.

Whether EduPassion, LLC violated COPPA and California's SOPIPA by collecting biometric and behavioral data from students under 13 without verifiable parental consent, and whether the company's subsequent anonymization and commercial use of that data to train emotion-detection AI constituted an unlawful appropriation of minors' private information for profit.

The case triggered a national reckoning over data ethics in education technology. Multiple school districts suspended the use of AI-based proctoring and tutoring software pending privacy reviews. The U.S. Senate held hearings on modernizing COPPA for the AI era, and several states introduced bills requiring explicit opt-in consent for biometric collection in schools. Public awareness of how children's digital behavior is tracked and monetized surged, fueling demands for a federal Student AI Privacy Act.