Breaking News for New York Institutions: State to Narrow Scope of Article 129-B Audit

July 5, 2017

By: Shelley Sanders Kehl, Monica C. Barrett, E. Katherine Hajjar, Philip J. Zaccheo, and Laura H. Harshbarger

In light of the serious concerns institutions and advocates have expressed about FERPA and other privacy laws, we have recently been informed that the Office of Campus Safety will likely revise its Notice of Audit, dated June 26, 2017. More information about these concerns is covered in our earlier posting, which can be found here.

We understand that the Office of Campus Safety intends to revise requests 9 and 10 so that the information requested will be limited to summary information, rather than requests for individual case files containing student data. It is possible that there may be further revisions to other requests within the Notice of Audit that ask for specific information about students, such as requests 4 and 6.

We expect that the Office of Campus Safety will communicate with presidents of colleges and universities within the next few days on these issues.

In the meantime, if institutions have not done so already, we advise you to request an extension of time to respond to the Notice of Audit. We further recommend that institutions not submit documents containing personally identifiable information, either directly or indirectly, about students.

If you have questions please contact a member of our Higher Education Group.