Parents and Students File a Privacy Complaint
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:
This form is for parents and students to file a privacy complaint with the NYSED Privacy Office.
Please do NOT include any information in this form that would constitute student or teacher or principal personally identifiable information (collectively referred to as "PII").** SED will contact you if additional information is needed.
By filing this form, you are filing a complaint with the NYSED Privacy Office alleging that PII has been disclosed to or accessed by an unauthorized person.
If you are an educational agency seeking to report a breach or unauthorized disclosure of PII, do not complete this form. Please see the information located here: Educational Agencies Report a Data Privacy/Security Incident
Please complete the form thoroughly, including sufficient detail that will allow the complaint to be investigated.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Q: Who may file a complaint?
A: A complaint may be made by a parent or parents of a student, eligible student (a student who is at least 18 years of age), principals, teachers, and employees of an educational agency.
Q: May a complaint be filed anonymously?
A: An anonymous complaint will be accepted and investigated if it contains enough information regarding the nature of the complaint and the parties involved. It may be impossible to properly investigate or respond to an anonymous complaint because NYSED cannot contact the person who filed it and may need additional information. Additionally, sometimes the person making the complaint (the "complainant") and the circumstances of the complaint are well-known to the school, making it impossible to maintain a complainant's anonymity.
Q: Will a third party named in a complaint be contacted by the NYSED Privacy Office?
A: Third parties named in a complaint will be contacted and the contents and details of the complaint will be disclosed.
Q: What happens after I file this complaint?
A: You will receive an email containing the questions in the complaint form, as well as your responses to those questions.
The complaint will be reviewed by:
NYSED Privacy Office
NYS Education Department
89 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12234
After the NYSED Privacy Office review is completed, you will receive an email informing you of the action(s) taken as a result of your complaint.
**PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is generally defined as any data from the student records of an educational agency that could potentially be used, alone or in combination with other data elements, to identify a particular student, or teacher or principal annual professional performance review (APPR) data. For more information on FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), which is the federal law that protects the privacy of student education records, go here: U.S. Department of Education FERPA information
Form
To submit a privacy complaint, please access the form from the following link: