Why Have Privacy and Data Security Training?

Schools are among the most vulnerable of institutions for privacy and data security incidents. There have been more than 500 data security breaches at schools since 2005. It can cost on average of about $1 million dollars for merely 5000 compromised records.

Many data security breaches are due to human error, not technical problems. A recent Wall St. Journal article declares: “Employees don’t mean to be the primary entry point for hackers. But they are.”

Failure to understand privacy laws such as FERPA can also devastating consequences.  At Virginia Tech, several personnel wrongly believed FERPA prevented them from sharing information about the troubled student who ultimately shot and killed 32 people.  Better training about FERPA could have led to the data being shared and this horrible incident being prevented.