Most breaches come from inside: Between 2022–2024, teens caused 57% of UK school data breaches, usually without advanced hacking skills.
Motives vary, impact is serious: What starts as a prank can lead to data leaks, extortion, and major reputational damage.
Common weak points: Inactive accounts, unlocked devices, excessive permissions, shared-out files, and internal phishing.
Proactive defense is essential: Regular audits, strong passwords and MFA, access controls, and real-time monitoring in Google Workspace reduce insider risk.
School data compliance is crucial for everyone’s security and well-being. While admins’ day-to-day tasks can sometimes seem routine, their repetitive audits, inspections, and incident responses lay the foundation for securing student data.
Strong data privacy protection supports children’s safety and the school’s cybersecurity. And, obviously, each school must comply with specific data protection regulations to keep operating on a lawful basis.
Even if you’ve already had in place a few solutions for data governance in Google Workspace for Education, compliance is an ongoing responsibility that impacts multiple areas of your school. Overlooking it can lead to data breaches, online safety threats, and risks to student well-being.
So what would a Google admin like you need to see, control, and prove to maximize school data protection?
Let’s go over the most critical data privacy regulations for educational institutions in the US and the EU, and how to reinforce compliance with them.
1. FERPA
What Is It?
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a U.S. federal law that applies to all educational institutions. It restricts access to students’ personal information stored by the school to ensure their privacy and security.
What Does FERPA Require from Schools?
- Safeguarding student records privacy.
- Sharing student records with parents, eligible students (over 18 years old), and third parties is permitted only with the written permission of an eligible student or parent.
- Correcting student information whenever eligible students or parents request it.
How Can Google Admins Support FERPA Compliance Using GAT Labs?
GAT+: Audit and manage personal data across the entire Google domain (Drive, email, apps, classrooms, calendars, contacts, devices, and groups). Monitor and secure data governance with in-depth insights into user activity in Google Workspace for Education.
GAT Flow: Schedule safe user offboarding, including management, deletion, or transfer of essential personal data to another user. Automate bulk modifications of student data with customized workflows.
GAT Unlock: Secure data access to files that include personal information, and change their document ownership with proper authorization.
2. COPPA
What Is It?
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is a U.S. federal law that safeguards children’s personal data on the Internet. It applies to individuals under 13 years old using online websites and services.
What Does COPPA Require from Schools?
- Privacy policy on children’s online safety and personal information protection.
- Parents’ control over their children’s data (the school needs a verifiable parental consent to collect this data and notify parents of any information about the children collected online).
How Can Google Admins Support COPPA Compliance Using GAT Labs?
GAT+: Gain full visibility of students’ data stored in Google Workspace for Education, permission management with automated alerts and reports, and compliance support.
GAT Shield: Monitor user online activity in real time and customize web filtering for Chromebooks and Chrome browsers. Detect, restrict, or block access to inappropriate and dangerous online and cloud content to protect children’s mental health and personal data.
3. CIPA
What Is It?
The Children’s Internet Protection Act is a U.S. federal law that applies to K-12 schools and libraries to protect minors from harmful and obscene online content. Only institutions compliant with CIPA can receive discounts on the E-Rate program, which supports internet access at schools.
What Does CIPA Require from Schools?
- Monitoring children’s Internet access and activity on all school devices.
- Web filtering or blocking of harmful content, including obscene material online.
- School internet safety policy covering minors’ online security, harmful content access, and unauthorized access and disclosure of minors’ personal data.
How Can Google Admins Support CIPA Compliance Using GAT Labs?
GAT Shield: Monitor online activity of every minor student in the Chrome browser or Chromebook in real-time. Customize web filtering and get alerts for specific keywords, URLs, categories, and downloads. Configure automatic actions triggered by an alert, such as closing the page and deleting downloaded files. Report on live user activity, including the pages searched and visited.
[BONUS] CIPA Compliance Section in GAT Shield
This dedicated section helps admins to protect users online according to the CIPA requirements. The following features can be applied to the entire school domain or just selected users.
- New rule in Site Access Control for “CIPA compliant category” to block all sites under this category.
- New rules in Site Access Control for public and private IP addresses.
- Strict Safe Search for both words and images on Google.
- Restricted YouTube access.
4. GDPR
What Is It?
The General Data Protection Regulation is an EU law that strengthens data protection across the European Union. It strictly regulates citizens’ data privacy rights and specifies how organizations should collect, process, store, and protect personal data.
What Does GDPR Require from Schools?
- Monitoring the personal information held by a school (why, where, and for how long it’s been stored, and who can access it), and respecting the data subject’s right to access, modify, or erase it.
- Data protection policy, including clear rules for data processing and procedures for data breaches.
- Ensuring data security (technical, organizational, and digital).
- Maintaining data access transparency and restricting unnecessary data exposure.
- Assigning a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who monitors personal data protection (in case of every public school and many private schools).
How Can Google Admins Support GDPR Compliance Using GAT Labs?
GAT+: Monitor, audit, and manage personal data processed in the school domain (files shared externally and internally, email attachments, app permissions, etc.). Quickly identify personal data with content-based searches and control access and permissions across Google Workspace.
GAT Unlock: With the Security Officer Approval system, ensure double-layered security protection before changing ownership and access to personal data in files and emails.
GAT Shield: Monitor Chrome browser activity in real time and set up automated alert rules to early detect data risks, sensitive content, and suspicious user behaviour.
5. ISO 27001
What Is It?
ISO/IES 27001 is an international standard for information security for organizations, including educational institutions. It specifies how to manage sensitive information securely, ensuring its confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
What Does ISO 27001 Require from Schools?
- Information Security Management System (ISMS) for systematic data security risk monitoring, assessment, and management.
- Comprehensive security information policy covering risk treatment, cyber incident response procedures, and authorized data access control management.
How Can Google Admins Support ISO 27001 Compliance Using GAT Labs?
GAT+: Leverage application risk assessment to review access privileges of third-party apps installed in your domain. Based on the reported scope risk score for each application, set up customized app access policies. Configure customizable alert rules for DLP and user security to automatically notify you of any risks. Review immutable Admin Log records of all admin actions for compliance auditing.
GAT Shield: Monitor cybersecurity in your school’s domain with Data Loss Prevention capabilities, including online activity monitoring, real-time alert rules, web filtering, reporting on visited sites, and keyword searches.
Teacher Assist: Teachers can prevent cyber threats in Google Classroom with real-time student screen monitoring. It allows viewing each student’s screen activity and managing it.
GAT+ for Ultimate School Data Protection
The following tasks help Google admins stay easily compliant with the most common school data privacy regulations throughout the year. Implementing these GAT+ features will save time and optimize students’ data protection and online safety.
Download this GAT+ task list to monitor compliance in Google Workspace for Education across the year.
Prioritize Student Data Privacy with Hassle-Free Solutions
Thousands of schools worldwide have already chosen GAT Labs to maintain compliance with key data privacy regulations effortlessly.
Create a secure Google Workspace for your students that highly protects their personal information.
Let their parents rest assured that the school’s online environment is free from inappropriate content.
Make the management board appreciate the value of detailed compliance reports.
Enjoy time-saving automation, cybersecurity monitoring, and broad data management capabilities that no school admin regrets. Move beyond Google’s Admin Console functionalities and keep your data privacy at the top level.
Talk to our Support Team to maximize your compliance auditing now.
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