A high school student is seeking more than $5 million in damages from standardized testing agencies College Board and ACT for allegedly selling personal information to colleges.

The Cook County, Illinois, student, about whom little else is known, filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Illinois charging that the test makers with "unfair, immoral, unjust, oppressive and unscrupulous" conduct.  More specifically, the plaintiff alleges that when test takers are asked if the agencies can "share" their personal information with others, the high schoolers are not being told that their information is in fact being sold to colleges that want to market to students.  According to news reports, the current price is about 37 or 38 cents per name.

A spokesman for ACT said it would not comment on pending litigation but that the lawsuit was a “unique instance," meaning ACT at least has not previously faced such a challenge. The College Board could not immediately say if it had ever faced such a lawsuit and would not comment on ongoing litigation, but a spokeswoman said, “as a guiding principle in all we do, the College Board takes very seriously the privacy, security and confidentiality of information entrusted to us by the students in our care.”

—Source:  insidehighered.com