The U.S. Department of Education safeguards personal privacy in its collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of records about individuals and makes such information available to the individual in accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. §552a).
A "record," as defined by the Act, is information about an individual maintained by an agency, including, but not limited to, the individual's education, financial transactions, or employment history, and that contains the individual's identifying number, symbol, or other identifying particular assigned to the individual (also known as "Personally Identifiable Information" or "PII").
A System of Records Notice (SORN) is a formal notice to the public that identifies the purpose for which PII is collected, from whom and what type of PII is collected, how the PII is shared externally (routine uses), and how to access and correct any PII maintained by ED.
All Federal agencies are required to publish in the Federal Register each system of records when the system is established or changed. These notices include the following:
- Name and location of the system;
- Categories of individuals on whom records are maintained in the system;
- Categories of records maintained in the system;
- Each routine use of the records contained in the system, including categories of users and purpose of such use;
- Policies and practices of the agency regarding storage, retrievability, access controls, retention, and disposal of the records;
- Title and business address of the agency official responsible for the system of records;
- Agency procedures whereby an individual can be notified at their request if the system of records contains a record pertaining to them;
- Agency procedures whereby an individual can be notified at their request how they can gain access to any record pertaining to them contained in the system of records, and how they can contest its contents; and
- Categories of sources of records in the system.
Some Federal agencies have responsibility for one or more systems of records which are applicable to all agencies, Government-wide. This negates the need for ED to publish a system notice if it maintains a record under a Government-wide system of records notice
Please note in accordance with Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, dated January 30, 2025, the Department has replaced the term “gender” with “sex” in 26 of its System of Records Notices (SORNs). This adjustment aligns the terminology used in the notices with compliant terms, without altering the records maintained in the underlying systems. As such, it does not constitute a “significant change” under section 6(b) of OMB Circular No. A-108.