Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA)

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is working with Census to share updates on the 2020 Census.

The purpose of this guidance is to answer questions that school officials may have had concerning the disclosure of personally identifiable information from students’ education records to outside entities when addressing the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).   

(Spanish language version) El Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. (Departamento) publica estas Preguntas frecuentes sobre la Ley de Derechos Educativos y Privacidad Familiar (FERPA) y la enfermedad de coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) y más comúnmente conocida como “coronavirus”.

The Data Breach Scenario Trainings are a series of packaged trainings developed by the Privacy Technical Assistance Center, designed to help educational organizations at all levels conduct internal staff development on data breaches. Each scenario has been developed into a training package, providing ready-to-use resources for the scenario leader(s) and participants.

Letter on the applicability of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to the disclosure by IHEs or postsecondary institutions of certain personally identifiable information (PII) from student education records to representatives of the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) in connection with the 2020 Census.

The U.S. Department of Education and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released updated joint guidance addressing the application of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule to records maintained on students. 

Letter to a Michigan state legislator on the applicability of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to state reporting requirements concerning students’ immunization records.

The Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) conducted a series of focus groups to gain insight into teachers’ needs for training on student privacy and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). This report documents the findings of these focus groups, as well as recommendations on how to develop new student privacy and FERPA training for teachers.

This document is a template for postsecondary institutions to use for eligible students to consent to the disclosure of PII from educational records to their parents.