Does FERPA covers date of birth via email

My question is I work for a post secondary school, a college. I work in the IT department and we have to confirm our end users accounts. We typically ask for Date of birth to confirm ones account and do so in the ticketing system we use that our students have submitted their ticket on their own for account issues.

Is it a FERPA violation to ask for their DOB to confirm their account is theirs through email/ticket? We really need clarification on this.

Hi Brande,

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I work for a college. Most often times we find an end user (student) will place a ticket asking to update their account information like a phone number so they can use it to get into their account on office.com. Our school requires 2 forms of MFA for this. 1. Being a personal email (a back door form to get into their school account/email) and they can use a personal phone number (like cell phone) or multi factor app (like Microsoft authentication App) to send them a verification code to enter their account each time they log in. This is a requirement from the federal government for our school.

To confirm who they are we have been told to ask in the ticket it’s self to have them verify their DOB to insure it is their account. We look up the account info and confirm DOB and can update their new account information they want it to be changed to. As some people change phone numbers, last names, emails etc..

So my question is, is that breaking FERPA to ask them their DOB in the ticket itself that gets emailed to them? The ticketing system is called connectwise it’s an RMM. We get a ticket in there and reply to it and it sends them an email with any updates, questions we might might or need to ask and they simply reply to the email with that info. But I need and want to know if asking for DOB is breaking the FERPA laws.

Thank you

Hi Brande,

Thanks for getting back to us. FERPA covers any documentation associated with a particular student, whether identified by name, social security number, student ID, or any other form of personally identifiable information (such as transcripts, financial records, assignments, etc.), falls under this coverage. Certain student records, termed "directory information," encompass details like address, phone number, and enrollment dates, which can be disclosed without the student's consent unless the student explicitly requests confidentiality.

Reach out again if there’s anything else we can do for you.