Can China See What Your Kid Is Reading?
A reading app used in 94 percent of American elementary schools was recently acquired by a Chinese-owned tutoring company. (Illustration by The Free Press; images via Getty)
Epic, a literacy platform for students, holds data on 75 million American kids—and experts say Beijing could use it for AI training.
--:--
--:--
Upgrade to Listen
5 mins
Produced by ElevenLabs using AI narration
39
If your child attends elementary school in the United States, there is a good chance that the school uses an online reading tool called Epic. Epic hosts over 40,000 books—and its appeal includes the ability to collect data from young readers in real time, which helps teachers and parents develop specialized reading plans based on each student’s skill level and interests.
But just before school ended for the summer, something big about Epic changed. Its owner, Epic Kids, was sold to Chinese tutoring company TAL Education Group in bankruptcy court for $95 million in May.
Continue Reading The Free Press
To support our journalism, and unlock all of our investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is, subscribe below.
$8.33/month
Billed as $100 yearly
$10/month
Billed as $10 monthly
Already have an account?
Sign In
