Digital transformation and massive cloud migration are transcending the enterprise and the private sector. While some may be slower to adopt, educational institutions are increasingly leveraging digital platforms for student records and academic activities.
Since much of the data held and processed by educational institutions belongs to minors, protecting student data is a top priority. A 2023 Comparitech study reports that since 2005, 2,691 data breaches have been reported in educational institutions, with at least 31,988,437 individual records affected as a result. A staggering 51 percent of these breaches occurred in K-12 institutions (many as result of the Illuminate breach).
The issue of trust is key here, especially between institutions and students. Thus, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was created to help set rules and guidelines around data and privacy protection.
Established in 1974, FERPA is a federal law in the United States that protects the privacy of student education records and setting the standard for protecting sensitive student data. FERPA requires educational institutions that receive federal funding to have stringent security measures in place — including physical security controls, network security mechanisms, and procedural safeguards to ensure comprehensive data protection.
Key principles of FERPA and who they apply to
FERPA is comprised of several core principles designed to protect the privacy and security of student education records:
- Privacy: Protects students’ educational records by restricting the use and disclosure of that data. The objective is to ensure students’ rights to their information and apply rules on the release of academic records.
- Access: Establishes the rights of parents and eligible students to access and review their education records, ensuring transparency and allowing for corrections if inaccuracies are found.
- Directory Information: While most information in a student’s education record is protected by FERPA, there’s some information termed “directory information” that can be disclosed without consent, unless the student or parent opts out.
- School Official: Allows schools to share student records without consent to school officials with legitimate educational interests.
FERPA applies to all schools receiving funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education, including public and private elementary and secondary schools and post-secondary institutions.
Individual rights under FERPA
FERPA grants students and their parents several rights concerning their educational records, including:
- Right to Access: Students and parents have the right to review or obtain copies of their educational records.
- Right to Amend: If students or parents believe that information in the records is inaccurate, they have the right to request amendments.
- Right to Control Disclosure: Students and parents can control the disclosure of certain data from their educational records.
- Right to File a Complaint: If they believe their rights under FERPA have been violated, students and parents may file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.
How Concentric AI helps educational institutions maintain FERPA compliance
With Concentric AI, there are three key steps to ensure your institution is compliant with FERPA.
- Discover and identify student data: The first step towards FERPA compliance is identifying where all instances of student data reside within your institution. Concentric’s Semantic Intelligence solution leverages advanced machine learning and AI to autonomously scan and categorize student data, regardless of where it’s stored — structured and unstructured data repositories, email/messaging applications, cloud or on-premises storage – all with semantic context. It identifies the data, learns its usage patterns, and determines if it’s at risk. This thorough discovery and identification process is crucial for educational institutions aiming for FERPA compliance.
- Monitor and classify student data for risk: After identifying student data, it’s equally important to monitor its usage, sharing patterns, and access logs. This continuous monitoring can quickly and accurately detect risks from inappropriate permissions, risky sharing, and unauthorized access. Concentric AI handles this process autonomously, alleviating the burden on IT and security teams, who often lack those resources in the education sector. Plus, our solution classifies data based on its sensitivity and significance, enabling institutions to apply suitable data protection measures and implement data retention policies.
- Remediate data risk issues: The final step is to tackle any data risk issues that emerge. Concentric’s Risk Distance™ analysis leverages deep learning to compare each data element with baseline security practices used by similar data to detect risk — without relying on rules and policies. Concentric AI addresses these access risks in real-time – whether it’s remediating access control issues, disabling sensitive file sharing, or blocking an attachment in a messaging platform.
With Concentric AI, educational institutions are empowered to:
- Identify personal student data
- Determine the level of sensitivity for student data
- Apply appropriate data protection measures
Harnessing deep learning and AI, Concentric Semantic Intelligence™ offers a content-based, categorized view of your student data and a risk rating for all exposed data.
Security, privacy, and compliance teams for educational institutions can effortlessly identify and remediate inappropriate sharing, unauthorized access, or incorrect entitlements of sensitive data, which goes a long way in preventing data breaches.
Book a demo today to see firsthand — with your own data — how Concentric AI can quickly and easily be deployed to manage student data risk in your institution.
