You can have privacy and an institution can collect data.

HIPAA is an example of that.

All personal data should be treated with at or near HIPAA levels of security. If I give my personal information to my bank, or google, that's fine for them to look at it, but it's not ok if that information magically lands in the hands of Coca Cola for marketing.

> This is simply untenable. Institutions of all kinds have been keeping records connected to individuals for millennia.

This is the reason privacy is needed.

> Try to run a school when you can’t maintain data on the students.

Yes, we should try this. Zero-knowledge proofs and other modern technology allows for this. Even the first step of not selling or using student data for commerce is an easy step.

Those who think that we should not try to improve because our privacy is already compromised, should step aside.

It's not - GDPR does that and it could even be much stricter still and we'd be fine.