Know how FERPA applies to photos & videos, part 2

During a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act workshop, a media center director asked me if his college could include photographs and videos of students as directory information. He asked the question because his office had been obtaining signed consents from students before the media center took their pictures. Of course, the advantage to him was that, if photos/videos could be part of the college's directory information, his office wouldn’t have to obtain the students’ written consent before their pictures were taken. The office would only have to know which of the students had exercised their FERPA right of non‐disclosure. Thus, a sizable bureaucratic burden would disappear. That, in fact, is what happened, and the media center director became a happy camper.