Texas Student Privacy Act
Under the Texas Student Privacy Act, TOPS is responsible for protecting students’ personal information from unauthorized use, access, or disclosure. These responsibilities include:
- TOPS will not use students’ personal information to create an online profile for a particular student, unless this profile is strictly used for a school purpose, as defined under the law.
- TOPS will not use students’ personal information for the purposes of targeted advertising.
- TOPS will follow security measures that are designed to protect students’ personal information from unauthorized use, access, disclosure, modification, and deletion.
- TOPS will not sell or rent students’ personal information, subject to certain exceptions. Such exceptions include instances where the sale or renting of personal information is in regards to post-secondary educational opportunities or scholarships, among others.
Conversely, under the Texas Student Privacy Act, TOPS is permitted to disclose personal information relating to students under the following circumstances:
- To protect against liability.
- To participate or respond to the judicial process.
- To ensure legal and regulatory compliance.
- To protect the safety and integrity of an online operator’s website, application, or online service.
- To assist in a legitimate research purpose.
- To assist a student in pursuing post-educational opportunities.
Under the Texas Student Privacy Act, the categories of personal information that are covered under the provisions of the law include but are not limited to:
- Email addresses.
- Physical addresses.
- Educational records.
- First and last names.
- Telephone numbers.
- Health and medical records.
- Social security numbers.
- Political affiliations.
- Religious information.
- Biometric information.
- Discipline records.
- Grades and evaluations.