FERPA compliance is our highest priority. Keeping each student’s privacy safe and protected is accomplished throughout our system, which is locked down and has the highest security settings available. 

The ConexED platform protects who can enter a meeting. It is virtually impossible for an unauthorized user to enter a Cranium Cafe meeting, whether walk-in or scheduled. With other meeting software systems, it is common for people to click on the URL for a meeting room and end up in a meeting that they are not supposed to be in.  With ConexED, authentication for entering a meeting is required and is limited to the authentication options selected by the particular group at a college/university. Another protection layer is our lobby and chat window, making that type of accidental meeting drop-in impossible. 

Our platform also protects access to archived material (recordings, chat, documents, whiteboards, etc.). Access to archives is tightly controlled through our hierarchical permissions. We also have settings that can be enabled so that archives can only be viewed by participating faculty and students, by which not even a supervisor or the college president could access them. The use case for this is primarily mental health counseling, but it’s just an example of the types of privacy available.

Below is our primary focus on keeping our system FERPA compliant:

1. Our standard subscription agreement contains FERPA indemnification.
2. Our entire platform is hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS). AWS data centers are the most secure in the business.
3. Data is protected in transit by TLS 1.2. and at rest using 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard.
4. Data is not shared with third parties.
5. No one will have access to, nor will we disclose any information from, a student’s educational records without the written consent of the student. The only exceptions: “school official with legitimate educational interests” to authorized representatives of the federal and state governments for audit and evaluation of federal and state-supported programs, or other provisions outlined by the FERPA document: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/reg/ferpa/index.html