DOB is not shared or displayed but is 'account glue'
When you send us student details to set up their accounts, we use their date of birth to tell apart two accounts. We know how painful and stressful it would be in the classroom for a student to access another's Exploration Log in the BECOME app., so we are doing what we can to keep that from happening.
It's also important as a part of our focus on data security. Across the whole BECOME program is it happens that students have common names (Jane Smith), or similar names (June Smith), or for there to be siblings in BECOME over different years.
When we get roster data from schools, names can be misspelt, email addresses can be wrong or in a numeric code -- date of birth is one other piece of data that is unique to the person , and it helps us to correlate and make a match if we have to tell two accounts apart.
It's doubly important because we are concerned with protecting privacy and preventing identity theft. The account data held at BECOME is much less valuable and less useful than the copy held at your school. We don't have any family data, no payment information, no national ID numbers, no tax identifiers, no health records, no educational records, no assessment scores, no home addresses, and no emergency contacts. The data we have is a low value target as a result.
A different type of privacy violation is possible if a student were to gain access to another student's account. This can happen innocently and accidentally during account maintenance if fixes are requested to a student's name or email address, or if a returning student's information changes from the previous registration. Date of birth helps us prevent this.
We request date of birth (DOB) only as a way to verify student account ownership. It's not a perfect solution, but when we can match the DOB between the original record in our system and the update submitted by the school, this can help us confirm that we are editing the correct record.