By Caitlin Walsh, News Staff

Much like the scandal of communication records being collected by the National Security Agency, a stir has been caused by the fact that students’ personal records are readily available to third party users, with or without parental consent. On Jan. 14, however, Senator Ed Markey’s office sent out a press release announcing plans to introduce legislation to protect the data of students from those third parties.

The press release noted that “data analytics companies increasingly play a role in the education area” and thus, Markey saw a need for safeguards to be guaranteed for these students.

When asked if the legislation would also protect college students information, however, Senator Markey’s communications director Giselle Barry said that the focus of the bill would be K-12.

The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law that has been in place to protect students personal information since 1974, has exceptions to its protection. Under FERPA, specified officials for evaluation purposes and organizations conducting studies for or on behalf of the school are just some of those allowed access, without consent of the parents or students, to education records.

FERPA applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education, according to the DOE’s website.  Students K-12 and in higher education are entitled to the provisions.

In October, Markey wrote a letter to the Department of Education (DOE) for clarification as to exactly what kinds of privacy protections students and parents were given after changes to FERPA allowed this sort of record access. Later in November, Markey introduced the bipartisan, bicameral “Do Not Track Kids Act” to amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998 so as to further provisions to protect students’ data.

According to the press release, Markey’s upcoming legislation would aim to never let student data be used to market products to kids, to let parents access and amend students’ information that is held by private companies and require private companies to delete the information that they no longer need.

But the exemption of college students from this legislation raised a flag, for some.

Lauren Spinella, a senior journalism major, said she can see his point of view in protecting children high school aged and below, who may be more vulnernable.

“However, if he wants to protect all students, college students should be protected in some way,” she said. “Even if grades K-12 take first priority.”

Spinella was not alone in her opinion. The sentiment that college students should be protected as well was shared by Emily Smith, a sophomore political science major.

“I think that college students should definitely be included,” she said. “We have a right to privacy.”