How Schools Violate FERPA

September 14, 2018

Passed in 1974, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of student educational records. Any school that receives federal funds from the Department of Education (DOE) is subject to the law and must comply with its requirements and prohibitions.

FERPA applies to students who are both under and over age 18. When a student is under age 18, the rights extended by the law belong to the student’s parents. The rights then transfer to students when they reach age of 18.

The rights of parents and students under FERPA include such things as inspecting, reviewing and seeking to correct the student’s educational records. But the law also has affords important privacy protections. It prohibits schools from releasing protected student information to third parties without permission, except in certain limited circumstances.

Unfortunately, schools, teachers and administrators violate FERPA’s privacy protections without realizing they are doing so A recent article from EdSurge describes how these unintentional violations can occur.

  • Schools frequently fail to make sure that third party vendors who provide the schools with “free” services – including apps and websites – are complying with the law’s privacy protections. In fact, the services provided by these vendors aren’t really aren’t free. They collect data on students without their knowledge or the knowledge of their parents. They then use the data for advertising and marketing purposes or sell it to third parties. The services provided by these third party vendors may seem to be “free”, but schools are paying them with data on students. Steven McDonald, an expert on FERPA, describes it this way : “’Free’ vendors . . . might not cost money, but their business model typically entails data mining, which is not allowed under FERPA. To stay compliant, schools should understand exactly what vendors are doing with their data.”
  • Schools also wrongfully deny parents access to the educational records of their children under age 18 and deny students who are age 18 or older access to their own records.
  • Teachers and school administrators can unwittingly disclose information about students on social media.

You can read more about FERPA and another law that protects the privacy of children and students on my website  here:

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