What is FERPA all about?

In order to conduct daily business, NAU must maintain a great deal of information about students, and NAU employees must have access to it. This information can often be very sensitive, especially in light of increasingly sophisticated information technologies. It is now possible to retrieve a variety of information about a student from NAU’s Data Warehouse. The potential for misuse, whether intentional or not, whether criminal or not, exists as never before.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was passed by Congress in 1974 to prevent just such misuse. The law defines the rights students have regarding the protection of their education records.