Privacy flags raise concern for graduate students
March 11, 2010 by Katie Perkowski · 3 Comments
Undergraduate students are not the only ones concerned with personal information available through UK’s online people search — now, graduate students are voicing their concern, too.
Members of UK’s graduate school have recently voiced concern about their information like home address and home telephone number being available on the UK Web site without their knowledge, said English teaching assistant Jesslyn Collins-Frohlich.
“We’ve been talking in my office because there are at least two or three people who’ve had students … call them late at night,” Collins-Frohlich said. “As a TA and as a student instructor, you just don’t really want that relationship and that access to you.”
Collins-Frohlich said since TAs are considered students, they are victim to the same privacy problems as other students, but a distinction needs to be made between student instructors and normal students.
“We would just like the same privacy and respect of our privacy that they give other instructors,” she said.
UK follows the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which is a federal law that tries to protect privacy of personal information within student education records.
FERPA states schools can give the following information without consent: a student’s name, address, phone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards and dates of attendance, according to the U.S. Department of Education Web site.
Students cannot find the home address and home telephone number of full-time professors on the Web site, but they can find TAs, Collins-Frohlich said.
“It’s just scary as a TA to know that a student that’s mad about a grade or something could show up at your door potentially,” she said.
Gretchen Wolf, a representative on the Graduate Student Congress, found problems in how privacy flags do not allow administrators to confirm a students’ enrollment. This creates a barrier when companies call to confirm student loans, she said.
T. Lynn Williamson, senior associate in legal services, said advantages and disadvantages come with getting a privacy flag.
“The privacy flag says we will release no directory information about the student, and you know when it says ‘no information,’ it means that,” he said. “You don’t really expect that the Registrar’s Office would say ‘it’s OK to tell this person, but it’s not OK to tell this person.’ You couldn’t even possibly expect that.”
Williamson said if a student got a privacy flag, UK would not be able to confirm them as a student because of the law, and that student would find his or her name missing at commencement ceremonies as well.
Williamson said creating a system that allows students to choose what information is made available is possible, but not at UK. Williamson said it would take thousands of dollars to let students choose what information they wanted available.
“Is it possible at the University of Kentucky with the technologies, the computer systems that we have? No, it’s not possible,” he said.
FERPA directory information can also give out photos, Email addresses, height, weight. There are no restrictions on how this information is used. Student’s identifying information is sometimes categorized, profiled and sold by databrokers (list brokers). There are no record retention schedules. No third party language. The Fair Information Practice Principles that protect adults are not applied to Directory Information.
FERPA protects the education record. Not the personal and sensitive information about the student. The bill text contradicts itself. Just recently the director of the Family Compliance Office (oversees the law) was fired for whistle blowing. He said the department was not protecting student privacy. He is right. It’s an ugly mess.
The Family Compliance Office also oversees PPRA. When Spitzer was the New York AG he took action against an education company selling personal information about students. You can’t sell it under PPRA but you can get it for free and then sell it under FERPA. The PPRA lawsuit was bumped up to the FTC and settled. The orders are what need to be applied to FERPA Directory Information. Either that or the same protection be applied as is applied to education records. (not personal information).
Of course one can opt-out of allowing their information be included in directory information. Families and students are discouraged to do this — they are told if they opt out their child’s name can’t be in a yearbook or a newspaper story. Directory Information should categorized. I doubt most parents are aware of how the information is used. I know here in NY no one knows… as is the case nationally except in a couple of school districts (Plano, Texas and another Texas district — probably a couple more.)
This is the same law that protects K-16 (and perhaps pre-k).
There needs to be a GAO report to audit the 50 states’ compliance to FERPA. And Leahy’s databroker bill would do a great service for children including them as consumers — especially since they are marketed.
Wow. My wife is a TA, and now any creepazoid with an internet connection can find out our phone number and where we live. Nice going, UK.
I just came across a letter that might be relevant to the original post. It’s from August 2001 when LeRoy S. Rooker was the Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office. Here’s the intro w/link to full text below excerpt:
[This is in response to your August 4, 2000, letter, addressed to Deputy Secretary Frank Holleman, in which you asked that the Department interpret the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in such a way that universities may disclose to a union representing student graduate assistants who teach undergraduate classes personally identifiable information from the education records of such individuals. I have been asked to respond to your letter to the Deputy Secretary because, know, this Office administers FERPA. This also serves to respond to your July 14th letter to this Office, and as a follow-up to our July 19th meeting, on this issue.]
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/library/aft.html