Students and families could lose control of sensitive...
Students and families could lose control of sensitive information because of the Education Department’s efforts to revise regulations under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, said the Electronic Privacy Information Center in a letter to the Senate Committee on…
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Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (http://bit.ly/1ag8cOC). By explicitly defining several terms under FERPA, such as “education program” and “authorized representative,” the Education Department made a wider range of student information available to a larger group of people, the letter argued. “As a consequence, data is now flowing to private companies that operate far outside the direct control of school systems,” the letter said. EPIC challenged the definitions in court, but the organization’s case against the Education Department was recently dismissed “on technical grounds,” according to the letter. So the organization wanted to bring the issue to the Senate committee’s attention. Areas the letter suggests the committee explore include who has access to student data, whether third parties are using any student data for commercial purposes, whether third parties are subject to security standards, and whether students and families can limit the use of data by third parties.