Every industry has unique challenges and requirements when it comes to safeguarding company documents and data. This is the first in a series of blog posts that address industries with a relatively high level of confidential data/documents as well as compliance obligations.
Education
According to InfoTrends’ recent Business Process Automation Opportunities for Vertical Markets study, nearly 55% of K-12 teachers identify improving student privacy as an important goal for their organization.
This concern for privacy is to be expected, given federal laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that prevent federally funded schools from releasing information from students’ education records without written permission from a parent or an “eligible” student.
IT administrators within education institutions need to manage exactly who’s authorized to access, print, copy, scan, or send confidential information. There are numerous device-based security measures available to help ensure that no one, whether knowingly or accidentally, sends a document or message to the wrong location. They make it easy to restrict individual access to unauthorized device features. Users can also be assigned pre-defined roles, and custom roles can be created to fine-tune access control.
Penalties for noncompliance include loss of federal funds, as well as criminal and/or civil penalties for the person who disclosed the information.
To ensure information such as grades, enrollment details, and bills are protected, grade schools, high schools, and universities may want to consider the solutions mentioned above. In addition, they can password-protect PDF documents to guarantee the information is not accessed or altered by third-parties.
For more information on how managed document services can help secure your educational institution’s print environment, please contact us today.