Education
Educational institutions (K–12, plus college/graduate and professional/technical schools) are among the most aggressively-breached entities with almost 159 million records exposed in more than 1,300 publicly-reported events during the period from 2005 to mid-2013, according to the Data Privacy Clearinghouse. Student records include critical Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as social security numbers, financial transaction data, confidential academic results and more. Reputation consequences are significant based on the public’s perception of trust in educational institutions as well as customers (students) who remain unaware — and are later surprised to learn — that their information is vulnerable.
DataVantage® Software Solutions:
- Maintain policies to address information security and to prevent data breaches.
- Mask and de-identify the required student PII and private institution information to protect it from data breaches.
- Generates automated, realistic-looking datasets for use in application development, testing, training and CRM applications.
- Restricts data access on a need-to-know basis.
- Tracks and monitors access to PII via data audit trails and helps identify who has accessed sensitive data.
Resources:
- Recent report reveals massive increase in data theft in Massachusetts, within education sector
- U.S. Department of Education Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC)
- Protecting Student Privacy While Using Online Educational Services
- For a helpful visual guide to data sharing in conformance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, see this FERPA Exceptions Summary.
- Joint Guidance on the Application of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) to Student Health Records (PDF)
- FERPA General Guidance for Students