Grade issues
One common, if unintentional, example of mishandling information is the issue of physically posting grades.
Posting grades is a convenient and even helpful thing for a professor to do, especially from the point of view of an anxious student needing to know his or her grade.
The problem arises with identifying whose grade is whose. Faculty may not use any identifying information on a posted list of grades because it is then possible for others to determine which student earned which grade. This would be a FERPA violation since it is disclosure of identifiable education records.
In fact, even using parts of identifiable information on a list of posted grades, like the last four digits of the student’s social security number, is against the law. The best bet is to use a student-designed identification system if you choose to post grades at all.