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Can a student ask other students (>14) to fill out an online form disclosing their grade on an assignment and then publish an average of the grades?

Or is the implicit permission given by filling out a survey insufficient?

More context from studentprivacy.ed.gov:

Schools may use their judgment in determining whether an unaccompanied minor is responsible enough to exercise certain privileges, such as inspecting and reviewing education records and providing consent for disclosure. 34 CFR § 99.5(b)

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FERPA merely binds education institutions that receive federal funding to adopt policies against improper disclosure of student information. It does not affect all disclosure of that information itself. In particular, FERPA would not prevent students or their parents from disclosing their own records or grades.

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  • To confirm: parents of a student who discloses their data cannot do anything to the institution under FERPA, even if the data is collected on a school network or otherwise using school resources?
    – belkarx
    Jan 23 at 18:10
  • @belkarx There might be an argument that a covered institution must not tolerate disclosure of education records, no matter who performs the disclosure. This argument becomes more reasonable as school resources are used (in particular if teachers were involved in this project). If concerned about this, asking for parental consent could be sensible. But that would mostly be a problem about school policies – the students disclosing or collecting grades would not be breaching FERPA if I understand this correctly.
    – amon
    Jan 23 at 19:27
  • @amon There also "might be an argument" that disclosing educational records is punishable by death, but it would not have any legal support. What basis is there for the argument you're suggesting?
    – bdb484
    Jan 23 at 22:16
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    This is exactly the same as people's mistakes about HIPAA. You can do whatever you want with your educational data, it's just the school that can't. (I'm faculty at a university and go through FERPA training)
    – Alan
    Jan 24 at 8:34

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