Confidentiality

Current federal laws and regulations require strict confidentiality of all information obtained from the BPS study as well as from the earlier National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS). These include the Privacy Act of 1974 [5 USC 552a], Privacy Act Regulations [34 CFR Part 56b], the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, the Computer Security Act of 1987, NCES Restricted Use Data Procedures Manual, and the NCES Standards and Policies. These data from groups of 30 or more will be combined to produce reports for Congress and others. Any unauthorized disclosure of individually identifiable information is a violation of Federal Law and is subject to heavy fines and imprisonment.

Specific procedures we have implemented include:

• All project staff with any access to study data are subject to severe fines and imprisonment for any disclosure of individual responses.
• All response data are maintained in secure and protected data files that do not include personally identifying information.
• Any data released to the general public (for example, statistical tables) will be tailored so that it is not possible to identify specific individuals or schools.

These procedures have been reviewed and approved by the federal government and by the RTI Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects.