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Oregon lawmakers are fast-tracking a dangerous pair of bills—House Bill 2508 and Senate Bill 312—that would give the Oregon Department of Education the power to create a centralized, statewide electronic student data system, collecting and sharing vast amounts of personal information on students, including vaccine records, without meaningful safeguards or limits.
These bills would mandate the creation of a “student information system” to electronically store and manage individual student data across school districts, while declaring an emergency to fast-track its implementation.
This surveillance-style system could become the backbone of future mandates, profiling, or tracking based on students’ health, academic performance, disciplinary records, or personal identifiers.
This system threatens parental rights, student privacy, and local control of education policy. These bills are vague, overly broad, and dangerous. They allow massive data collection without informed consent, setting the stage for misuse or overreach.
HB 2508 was heard and reported out of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means today without amendments. Please act TODAY!
The WAPF does not take a position on provisions in these bills that are unrelated to vaccination.
TAKE ACTION
Contact your Oregon State Senator and Representative TODAY and urge them to vote NO on HB 2508 and SB 312.
Look up your state legislators here:
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/findyourlegislator
SAMPLE SCRIPT:
“Hi, my name is ___, and I’m a constituent. I’m urging you to oppose HB 2508 and SB 312, which would create a centralized statewide student data system.
These bills directly threaten student privacy and local control of schools. They would allow the state to collect and manage sensitive student data without consent or clear limits on how that data can be used or shared.
Please protect students and families from government overreach—vote NO on HB 2508 and SB 312.”
TALKING POINTS
Keep your call or email short! Pick the 2 or 3 of these talking points – or none of them- that are most important to you, and be sure to explain why this issue matters to you personally.
- Student data belongs to families, not the state. These bills shift power from parents and local schools to unelected state agencies.
- Children’s vaccination records should be kept private and not handled by the school system or the state Department of Education. When these medical details are linked to school files, they are no longer safeguarded as confidential health information and may be viewed or shared more broadly across agencies. This creates serious privacy risks and could lead to unfair treatment of students and families based on personal medical choices.
- These bills provide no limits on what data can be collected. Academic, behavioral, disciplinary, health, and possibly even biometric data could be stored and linked under this system.
- There is no clear opt-out. Once the system is created, families may not be able to meaningfully keep their children out of it.
- These bills allow for information-sharing “across the education continuum”—language that could include colleges, social services, or law enforcement.
- Emergency clause limits public input. Declaring an “emergency” is a tactic to bypass full debate and transparency. Student privacy should never be rushed.
- This is the foundation of future mandates and profiling. Centralized data systems often lead to risk scoring, intervention programs, or future policy requirements based on compliance.
- Supporters of vaccine tracking systems claim they are a way to protect patients by guaranteeing that patients don’t receive multiple doses of the same vaccinations from different providers. According to the CDC’s statements, though, it’s clear that one purpose of these registries is to create pressure on people who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. The CDC openly stated that vaccine registries are a tool to identify areas of “undervaccination” so they can be “addressed” and brought into “compliance.” https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6133a2.htm
- These bills would be expensive and unnecessary. Oregon already has systems for managing student records at the local level. Centralizing control wastes taxpayer money and exposes families to greater risk.
MORE INFORMATION
Read the full text of the bills and follow their progress:
HB 2508: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Measures/Overview/HB2508 SB 312: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Measures/Overview/SB312
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We the People reserve the right to keep Oregon safe from government overreach and government surveillance and government overspending. This bill should not move forward. We the People guard our right to privacy and the privacy of our children. Stop this bill!!