FERPA — Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), also commonly known as the Buckley Amendment, became law in November 1974 to protect the privacy of personally identifiable information in a student’s education record. However, the courts have been clear that not every document that names or refers to a student is a FERPA record and have typically limited the reach of the statute in a common-sense way to records that have something to do with educational activity.