Fort Plain Central School District > Board of Education > Board Policy 5676: Non-Instructional/Business Operations: Data Privacy and Security Policy

Board Policy 5676: Non-Instructional/Business Operations: Data Privacy and Security Policy

Purpose

This policy addresses Fort Plain Central School District’s responsibility to adopt appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards and controls to protect and maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of its data, data systems and information technology resources.

Policy Statement

It is the responsibility of Fort Plain Central School:

  1. To comply with legal and regulatory requirements governing the collection, retention, dissemination, protection, and destruction of information;
  2. To maintain a comprehensive Data Privacy and Security Program designed to satisfy its statutory and regulatory obligations, enable and assure core services, and fully support the District’s mission;
  3. To protect personally identifiable information (PII), and sensitive and confidential information from unauthorized use or disclosure;
  4. To address the adherence of its vendors with federal, state and SED requirements in its vendor agreements;
  5. To train its users to share a measure of responsibility for protecting Fort Plain CSD student data and data systems;
  6. To identify its required data security and privacy responsibilities and goals, integrate them into relevant processes, and commit the appropriate resources towards the implementation of such goals; and
  7. To communicate its required data security and privacy responsibilities and goals and the consequences of non-compliance, to its users.

Standard

Fort Plain CSD will utilize the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework v 1.1 (NIST CSF or Framework) as the standard for its Data Privacy and Security Program.

Scope

The policy applies to Fort Plain CSD employees, and also to independent contractors, interns, volunteers (“Users”) and third-party contractors who receive or have access to Fort Plain CSD data and/or data systems.

This policy encompasses all systems, automated and manual, including systems managed or hosted by third parties on behalf of the educational agency and it addresses all information, regardless of the form or format, which is created or used in support of the activities of an educational agency.

This policy shall be published on the Fort Plain CSD website and notice of its existence shall be provided to all employees and Users.

Compliance

The Superintendent of Schools and the Data Privacy Officer are responsible for the compliance of their programs and offices with this policy, related policies, and their applicable standards, guidelines and procedures. Instances of non-compliance will be addressed on a case-by-case basis. All cases will be documented, and program offices will be directed to adopt corrective practices, as applicable.

Oversight

The Superintendent of Schools shall annually report to its Board of Education on data privacy and security activities and progress, the number and disposition of reported breaches, if any, and a summary of any complaint submitted pursuant to Education Law Section 2-d.

Data Privacy

  1. Laws such as the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA), NYS Education Law Section 2-d and other state or federal laws establish baseline parameters for what is permissible when sharing student PII.
  2. Data protected by law must only be used in accordance with law and regulation and SED policies to ensure it is protected from unauthorized use and/or disclosure.
  3. Fort Plain CSD has established a Data Governance Team to manage its use of data protected by law. The Data Privacy officer and the Data Governance Team will, together with program offices, determine whether a proposed use of PII would benefit students and educational agencies, and to ensure that personally identifiable information is not included in public reports or other public documents, or otherwise publicly disclosed.
  4. No student data shall be shared with third parties without a written agreement that complies with state and federal laws and regulations. No student data will be provided to third parties unless it is permitted by state and federal laws and regulations. Third-party contracts must include provisions required by state and federal laws and regulation.
  5. The identity of all individuals requesting PII, even where they claim to be a parent or eligible student or the data subject, must be authenticated in accordance with Fort Plain CSD procedures.
  6. It is Fort Plain CSD policy to provide all protections afforded to parents and persons in parental relationships, or students where applicable, required under FERPA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the federal regulations implementing such statutes. Therefore, Fort Plain CSD shall ensure that its contracts require that the confidentiality of student data or teacher or principal APPR data be maintained in accordance with federal and state law and this policy.
  7. Contracts with third parties that will receive or have access to personally identifiable information must include a Data Privacy and Security Plan that outlines how the contractor will ensure the confidentiality of data is maintained in accordance with state and federal laws and regulations and this policy.

Incident Response and Notification

The Fort Plain CSD will respond to data privacy and security critical incidents in accordance with its Information Security Breach and Notification Policy and Data Breach and Cyber Incident Response Plan. All breaches of data and/or data systems must be reported to the Data Privacy Officer, Superintendent of Schools, and Chief Information Security Officer. All breaches of personally identifiable information or sensitive/confidential data must be reported to the Privacy Officer. For purposes of this policy, a breach means the unauthorized acquisition, access, use, or disclosure of student, teacher or principal PII as defined by Education law Section 2-d, or any SED sensitive or confidential data or a data system that stores that data, by or to a person not authorized to acquire, access, use, or receive the data.

State and federal laws require that affected individuals must be notified when there has been a breach or unauthorized disclosure of PII. Upon receiving a report of a breach or unauthorized disclosure, the Executive Deputy Commissioner, Chief Privacy Officer, Counsel and other subject matter experts will determine whether notification of affected individuals is required, and where required, effect notification in the most expedient way possible and without unreasonable delay.

Acceptable Use Policy and other Related Department Policies

Users must comply with the Acceptable Use Policy in using District resources. Access privileges will be granted in accordance with the user’s job responsibilities and will be limited only to those necessary to accomplish assigned tasks in accordance with State Entity missions and business functions (i.e., least privilege). Accounts will be removed, and access will be denied for all those who have left the agency or moved to another department.

All remote connections must be made through managed points-of-entry in accordance with the Remote Access Policy.

Training

All users of District data, data systems and data assets must annually complete the information security and privacy training offered by the department. Information security and privacy training will be made available to all users. Employees must complete the training annually.

NOTE: Refer also to Policies #5671 — Information Security Breach and Notification
#5673 — Employee Personal Identifying Information
#6470 — Staff Use of Computerized Information Resources
#6471 — Use of Email in the School District
#7240 — Student Records: Access and Challenge
#7244 — Student Privacy, Parental Access to Information, and Administration of Certain Physical Examinations to Minors

Adopted: 7/7/20