Measures are being taken on the national and university levels to protect students’ information.As students and administrators become more concerned with information privacy, digital records become more prevalent and cases of identity theft continue to increase.
A major step in student privacy was made in 1974, with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which set regulations to control the ways in which schools and universities handled student information. The act applies to all schools that receive federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education.
American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers associate executive director Barmak Nassirian said the act regulated the handling of student information and clarified the ownership of educational records.
“Under federal law, students are entitled to control their private information,” he said. “That information belongs to the students. If [students] want to disclose their information to a third party, they must sign a document of prior written consent.”
Nassirian said FERPA rights extend to all student information maintained by a student’s school and only directory information such as a student’s name, major, and phone number can be disclosed without express consent.
“Not only grades, classes, discipline records or instances of academic fraud [will be included in the consent],” Nassirian said, “but also library funds, parking tickets and health information.”
University registrar Butch Stokes said MSU works hard to adhere to FERPA guidelines.
“We’ve implemented FERPA maybe farther than some institutions,” he said. “If you read the specifics of FERPA [there] are things [universities] really have to do.”
Although FERPA controls student information, the act does allow some exceptions for disclosure of information concerning safety, as well as court orders and student waivers.
Stokes said if students have a drug or alcohol incident, the university can contact the student’s parent without consent and the university may give authorities student information if a student presents a potential safety threat to others or the institution.
“There are several exceptions in FERPA to give out student information, but we always try to [inform the students],” Stokes said.
Students can also choose to sign a waiver, in which the student gives consent to reveal student information to a specified third party such as a parent or guardian.
“The waiver says [the student] is granting a waiver for [MSU] to release information to a specified family member or guardian by name,” Stokes said. “We then put that information in our system, and we can see that a waiver is in effect and who [the waiver] is to.”
Junior wildlife and fisheries major Amanda Fernandez said she does not believe others should have access to students’ personal information.
“I didn’t like it when Facebook made information [available through search engines], so I made sure mine wasn’t,” she said. “I don’t want anybody to see anything about me that I didn’t give them.”
Stokes said the university has been making waivers available, usually at freshman orientation, for three years and roughly two-thirds of students have signed them.
Senior marketing major Jessie Pinkerton said the protection of student information is important and that it is valuable for students to be able to choose whether or not to disclose that information.
“It’s not the school’s decision whether or not to release student information,” Pinkerton said.
In addition to adhering to FERPA, Stokes said the university is continually improving student information privacy, most recently by replacing the use of student Social Security numbers with new student ID numbers.
“We’re trying to do our best [to prevent] identity theft,” he said. “We also use the NetID, which is unique to MSU also.”
Measures to increase information privacy include protecting all student information behind MSU’s firewall and allowing students to log into MyBanner and choose what directory information is viewable, Stokes said.
“MSU is working very hard [on information security] and we’re doing a lot to protect the [student records and information],” he said.