David Desroches reports:
A state website published information about college students and their salaries, violating their privacy rights. The incident has called attention to a number of other concerns surrounding transparency and privacy.
The website Transparency.ct.gov is dedicated to providing transparency of government functions. It includes, among other things, the names, positions and salaries of government employees.
But while reviewing the site, public auditors found that names of college students and their salaries were included. This likely violated their rights to privacy that are laid out in the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.
“The college had released this information to the state comptroller for purposes of payroll, which is completely allowed,” said John Geragosian, one of the state’s auditors. “The state comptrollers office in turn released this information to the office of Fiscal Analysis for the creation of the transparency website, which appears to violate FERPA.”
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