AASA Partners with Future Privacy Forum on COVID FERPA FAQ
AASA was pleased to collaborate
with our friends at Future Privacy Forum on a new white paper that offers
guidance to help K-12 and higher education administrators and educators protect
student privacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s no question that schools
and institutions are struggling to manage this unprecedented situation and need
as much support and information as possible to do their jobs,” said Amelia
Vance, FPF’s Senior Counsel and Director of Youth and Education Privacy.
“The Future of Privacy Forum is tracking the situation closely in an effort to
anticipate and help address the challenges that schools may encounter as they
work to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, and we expect to release additional
resources in the days ahead.”
“As our nation’s public school
superintendents navigate through the extraordinary set of circumstance they
face in light of COVID-19, AASA remains committed to gathering, creating, and
disseminating as many resources as possible to answer, to the best of our
ability, the myriad questions they raise,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng,
AASA’s Associate Executive Director for Advocacy & Governance. “Through our
work with FPF, we are happy to provide this collection of frequently asked
questions in the context of student data and privacy and FERPA. Protecting
student data and privacy is just one of the many factors they need to consider,
and we are pleased to have the opportunity to share this resource today.”
The white paper offers insight
into how the health
or safety emergency exception under the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act (FERPA) allows schools to share students’ personally
identifiable information (PII) with the community and relevant officials during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to FPF and AASA, under
the FERPA health or safety emergency exception, “if a school determines that
there is an articulable and significant threat to the health or safety of a student
or other individuals and that someone needs PII from education records
to protect the student’s or other individuals’ health or safety, it may
disclose that information to the people who need to know it without first
gaining the student’s or parent’s consent.” Read more.
The white paper addresses a
number of frequently asked questions, including:
- If a student has COVID-19, what information from
education records can the school share with the community?
- If the school suspects that a student has COVID-19,
what information can the school share with its community?
- If a school suspects that a student may have COVID-19,
can school officials contact the student’s primary care physician?
- If a student has COVID-19 and the school’s health
records are covered by HIPAA rather than FERPA, what information may the
school disclose to its community?
- What if the school receives a voluntary request from a
local, state, or federal agency for student records to assist the agency
in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak?
- What should a school do if it receives a request under
a mandatory reporting law to share student health records with a public
health agency?
- Do interagency agreements with other state or local
agencies allow schools to disclose education records without obtaining
consent?
To read the white paper, click here. To learn more
about the Future of Privacy Forum’s student privacy work, click here.