FERPA

FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 1974) is the US federal law that governs the privacy of student education records. For any institution receiving US federal education funding — which is effectively every public and most private US universities — FERPA applies. Credentials issued to students are education records under FERPA.

FERPA is less prescriptive than GDPR about data architecture, but it has specific rules about consent, parental rights (for minors), and disclosure to third parties. An institution can't publish a student's credential without consent; an institution can't let LearnCoin use recipient data for purposes outside the direct issuance relationship.

LearnCoin's default architecture is FERPA-compatible: we don't use recipient data for any purpose other than credential issuance and verification, recipients get a copy of their own credential (FERPA transparency), and erasure requests are honored. US institutional tenants sign a FERPA-specific addendum alongside the main service agreement.