FERPA & COPPA Dual Compliance
Platforms serving both K-12 (COPPA applies to under-13 students) and higher education (FERPA) must implement separate compliance controls for different user populations.
AWS Security Consulting
AWS Cloud Security for Education & EdTech
We build AWS security architectures for educational institutions and EdTech platforms that protect student data under FERPA and COPPA, secure campus identity federation, and meet research data security requirements.
- A signal or assessment finding arrives.
- Detection stays on, not a one-off scan.
- Assess ranks the finding and its blast radius.
- Containment changes IAM, network, or workload scope.
- Production changes wait for a named owner and a change window.
- The posture that remains is the one you can show an auditor.
Key Challenges We Solve
Student Data Access Controls
FERPA restricts student education record access to authorized school officials. AWS IAM and application-level access controls must enforce these restrictions — only authorized staff see specific student records.
Campus Identity Security
Campus identity systems federated to AWS via Shibboleth or Active Directory must be secured against credential attacks, session hijacking, and SSO misconfiguration that could expose student data.
Research Data Security
Federally funded research data may have specific security requirements — NIST 800-171 for CUI, FISMA compliance for federal grants, and IRB-mandated controls for human subjects research data.
Our Approach
FERPA-Compliant Data Architecture
Student record data in dedicated, encrypted S3 buckets and RDS databases with IAM role-based access limited to authorized school official roles, audit logging of all student record access, and automated alerts for access outside normal patterns.
Campus Identity Federation
AWS IAM Identity Center integrated with institutional Shibboleth or Active Directory, MFA enforcement for admin accounts, conditional access policies, and automated account provisioning/deprovisioning from the institutional directory.
Research Data Security Tiers
Separate AWS accounts for research data with NIST 800-171 controls (for CUI), isolated VPCs for sensitive research datasets, and data classification tagging that routes data to the appropriate security tier automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
What security controls does FERPA require for cloud-hosted student data?
FERPA does not specify technical security standards, but requires "reasonable" safeguards. For AWS, this means: encryption at rest and in transit, access limited to school officials with legitimate educational interest, audit logging of all access to education records, and a signed agreement with AWS as a "school official." We implement these controls through KMS encryption, IAM role-based access, CloudTrail, and the AWS FERPA agreement.
How do we secure AWS for COPPA compliance for under-13 students?
COPPA requirements include: verified parental consent before collecting data from children under 13, data minimization (collect only what is necessary), no behavioral advertising using children's data, and parental rights to review and delete their child's data. AWS technical controls focus on data isolation (separate databases for under-13 users), consent workflow integration, and automated deletion capabilities.
What is required for NIST 800-171 compliance for research data on AWS?
NIST 800-171 (required for CUI in federally funded research) has 110 controls across 14 families. Key AWS-specific controls: multi-factor authentication, encrypted storage, audit logging, incident response capability, and configuration management. AWS GovCloud or standard regions can both meet NIST 800-171 when properly configured. AWS provides a NIST 800-171 assessment guide mapping controls to AWS services.
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Talk to our AWS experts about aws cloud security for education & edtech.