FERPA

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a Federal law enacted in 1974 that protects the privacy of students.

Understanding Your Rights Under FERPA

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. At the University of Maine at Farmington, FERPA ensures that students have the right to review their records and request corrections if they are inaccurate, misleading, or violate their privacy rights.

UMF also designates certain information as “Directory Information,” which may be shared publicly unless a student chooses to restrict its release. This includes details such as your name, mailing address, class level, program of study, dates of attendance, enrollment status, degrees and awards received, most recent previous educational institution attended, and pertinent athletic statistics. Students can take formal action if they prefer to keep this information private.

Ouside of the front of Theodora J. Kalikow Education center. Tree with red fall foliage. Large green leaf structure.

Managing Your Directory Information Privacy

While University of Maine System personnel may no longer disclose phone numbers, date of birth, or addresses other than Mailing as Directory Information, that information is still available to be accessed for legitimate education purposes in the same manner as other non-Directory items (e.g. student ID numbers, gender, etc.) are now.

Again, students may request that their Directory Information not be released at any time while they are an enrolled student at UMF.

To do this, students can set the FERPA indicator in Student Self-Service on MaineStreet.

A complete copy of the University’s record release policy is available on MyCampus under Policies – FERPA Information.

View the Full FERPA Policy