Chinese School Faces Backlash Over Parent Data Forms

A secondary school in Dongying, Shandong Province, eastern China has become the focus of intense online criticism after distributing forms to newly admitted students that required parents to provide detailed personal information including names, workplaces, job titles, phone numbers, and detailed vehicle information—car make, license plate number, and purchase price.

The school stated the information would be used for internal operations only and asked parents to provide accurate details with confidence. However, this explanation failed to ease privacy concerns when the form circulated online. Many netizens questioned the school's true intent, with some suggesting the school might use socioeconomic data as a factor in how it treats students. One commenter asked, "If teachers don't discriminate based on family status, why collect this data?" Another worried, "If I say I'm unemployed, will my child be seated at the back of the classroom?" Critics argued the school was abandoning its educational mission by linking students' learning to family financial circumstances.

The intense backlash prompted the Dongying Municipal Education Bureau to issue a statement on June 30, confirming it had investigated and ordering the school to immediately stop collecting such data and delete all gathered information. The bureau also announced plans to inspect other schools in the area to prevent similar incidents and pledged to "prioritize protecting students' and parents' personal data."

A school alumnus revealed that years earlier, incoming students were asked for similar information. The school justified it then as a security measure to facilitate safe student pickup and drop-off within campus. The school spokesperson later clarified that asking for car prices was not intended to discriminate but to help determine which students qualified for financial aid for low-income families. However, this explanation did little to satisfy public concerns, as many argued that "family status assessments should rely on official government documents or income verification, not car prices."

This incident reflects broader problems in China's education system. Recently, an elementary school in Hubei Province faced similar criticism for distributing questionnaires asking students about parents' occupations, workplace locations, and daily working hours.