Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”)
Student privacy is of the utmost importance to zyBooks, and maintaining student privacy is an important priority. In creating accounts with zyBooks, students provide their own names and email addresses and agree to zyBooks’ terms and privacy policy.
FERPA governs the circumstances under which schools or school officials can disclose Educational Records. Specifically, FERPA provides that, with the exception of directory information, parents or eligible students shall “provide a signed and dated written consent before an…institution discloses personally identifiable information from the student’s education records, except as provided in § 99.31.”
If a school does not disclose personally identifiable information, FERPA is not implicated. FERPA does not regulate independent third parties who do not receive student personally identifiable information from schools or school officials and instead receive this information directly from students or their parents/guardians.
zyBooks does not fall under the category of “School Official” as that term is defined by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g.
Where applicable, zyBooks protects the privacy of our customers’ student records in conformance with FERPA and complies with applicable provisions of FERPA. If we receive a subpoena or judicial order for the disclosure of records, we will notify the associated institution(s) prior to fulfilling the request in accordance with FERPA §99.31(a)(9) to the extent permitted by law.