SRC, Dr. Hite,
I am Carol Heinsdorf.
Resolution A-7, for a possible total expenditure of 5 million dollars over a 3 year period to Inprocess Consulting LLC, threatens SDP student and family privacy.
Inprocess has been in operation for only one year, with an annual revenue of 36 thousand dollars. Why is our students’ personal information being entrusted to an untried company with no track record?
Inprocess has only one owner/employee, who has a day job elsewhere. Will this one person be able to manipulate all SDP data himself, perhaps in the evenings in his basement, or is he more likely to outsource sensitive student and family information to an unknown and unapproved sub-contractor? Did I mention that Inprocess is online for having filed for H one B visas for foreign workers?
Researching this one Inprocess owner/employee to his day job tells us that he has established a bigger business, IPC Global, intent on making lots and lots of money through marketing. So, having founded this itty-bitty little Inprocess LLC, the 5 million dollars that you are about to award to Inprocess can be shifted immediately to IPC Global. If the new technology fails for SDP, there will then be no financial recourse. Inprocess LLC will hold no funds. Well, maybe it will have 36 thousand dollars left to make good on the 5 million.
IPC Global, the big company, uses the Qlik platform. Do you know that Qlik reviews highlight its security issues, its prohibitive expense, its steep learning curve for programmers and its lack of customer support? Resolution wording, “without tech support,” is a lie. Do you understand that you will be required to continue this prohibitively expensive contract with Inprocess year after year, simply because of the programming? A-7 says this system will grow and adapt; the reviews say the program will crash. Qlik is cloud-based, therefore student information is out-sourced, vulnerable to outside attack, and vulnerable to inside attack by any user with a USB stick to download the program.
Will parent information such as low-income neighborhoods and incarcerations be included? With new easily accessed dashboards, the front end of what are now discreet SDP records that require permission to access, will Purchasing have access to student counseling records, or Transportation have access to student medical records? After all, Qlik reviews say that user access is all or nothing. Resolution A-7 states that information will be disseminated to “the community.” Who is that? How can that possibly happen securely?
What say will parents have in the distribution of their children’s data? How is the Qlik program, with student and family private information, going to be used for business? How long will these sensitive student records be available in the system? After graduation, will information for former students be sold to a marketing firm? After all, Qlik is a BI, business intelligence, program, with a history in rental cars but no history in education. Why does the SDP need this?
Thank you.
Links to information in the article:
Inprocess Consulting LLC–see sole owner/employee
http://www.buzzfile.com/business/Inprocess-Consulting-LLC-404-936-3774
Inprocess Consulting LLC owner/employee
http://www.ipc-global.com/About-Us/About-Us/Leadership-Team
Inprocess Consulting LLC owner/employee’s day job
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmeersman
Read cons about Qlik
https://www.trustradius.com/products/qlikview/reviews
Pros and cons of cloud computing
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/11-pros-cons-cloud-computing-everyone-should-know-umesh-singh
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 