Written by
Darron Flagg
•Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer, PowerSchool
At PowerSchool, we believe in the importance of transparency about our global privacy program through our publicly available global privacy statement. Respecting the data privacy rights of data subjects is at the heart of what we do. Ensuring student equity, privacy, and access to quality education is our top priority.
We regularly analyze our global privacy statement to ensure it is updated for legal compliance and adherence to the highest accountability standards, supporting the public’s ability to understand how we respect data privacy rights. That’s why we’ve recently updated our statement to include new sections, updated language given changes in laws, and listed our privacy certifications (including membership in the new Data Privacy Framework Program administered by the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce), new product naming structures, and a special section on international privacy laws.
Here are highlights of our most recent updates, which took effect on January 1, 2024.
New Global Privacy Statement Launched to Address Standard Customer Questions
We’ve updated information on how PowerSchool respects the privacy of the student educational records and personal information provided to us by our customers to process on their behalf. Our customers are schools, districts, and other academic institutions that enable their staff, the parents/guardians of students, and students themselves to access and use our products, including mobile services. The global privacy statement defines and provides comprehensive information on data categories, privacy principles, data subject rights, data retention, legal bases of processing, data subprocessors, and a legitimate interest statement.
Expanded Sections on International Privacy Laws in Several Global Regions
Our global privacy section also includes information specific to customers in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Unified Kingdom. Within each section, you can find information on some of the international laws and regulations that apply to those regions.
Changing Names: From “Unified” Solutions to “Clouds” and “Platforms”
In 2023, PowerSchool underwent significant changes to our solution naming conventions from “Unified” solutions (i.e. Unified Classroom, Unified Operations, etc.) to PowerSchool Cloud offerings, platform capabilities, and publicly accessible products. In the global privacy statement, you can find privacy-related descriptions of PowerSchool’s offerings in these categories.
PowerSchool Clouds are product sets that combine all the digital tools needed to succeed in specific roles supporting student achievement. These clouds include Student Information Cloud, Personalized Learning Cloud, Educator Effectiveness Cloud, HR & ERP Cloud, Student Success Cloud, College, Career, and Life Readiness Cloud, and HigherEd Cloud.
Products that fall outside of specific Cloud sets are featured in Platforms, including My PowerSchool, My PowerSchool Communications, Analytics & Insights, Communications, PowerSchool AI, Data, and Publicly Accessible Products.
New Sections in the Global Privacy Statement
The PowerSchool global privacy statement features the following new sections:
Frequently Asked Questions
This new FAQ section answers common questions such as who a data subject is, what data subject rights are, what personal data PowerSchool collects, and how PowerSchool protects personal data.
General Privacy Principles
PowerSchool places great importance and value on the proper handling of personal data that flows within our products as we provide services to our customers. Our new section on our privacy principles displays what underlies and guides PowerSchool’s approach to product design and development, as this directly impacts how we respect data privacy and data protection for our customers in our solutions. These principles include information on lawful processing, fairness, control, uniformity, transparency, purpose limitation, privacy by design, data minimization, accuracy, storage limitation and disposal, privacy rights, security, and accountability.
PowerSchool AI
PowerSchool uses artificial intelligence (AI) to promote efficiency in the development of technology for its engineering teams. All PowerSchool AI development is governed by PowerSchool’s Responsible AI Guiding Principles. Moreover, we are engaging AI to innovate our products to provide even more valuable benefits to our customers. As a function of our commitment to privacy by default, PowerSchool evaluates any AI solution to ensure customer PII (personally identifiable information) data is not included as part of any training data sets for AI models.
Monitoring and Tracking
PowerSchool does not track users’ activity outside of PowerSchool products. This means we do not store tracking cookies on a user’s browser to enable us to identify them when they visit our web properties.
PowerSchool Knows Data Privacy
PowerSchool licenses products and platforms to help process data on behalf of educational institutions. PowerSchool customers own their student and school data. We do not sell student or school data. We do not collect, maintain, use, or share student personal information beyond what is authorized by the district, parent, or student.
PowerSchool also strictly and proactively follows legal, regulatory, and voluntary requirements for protecting student privacy, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), state regulations, and the Student Privacy Pledge.
In adherence to these initiatives and responsibilities, we will continue to update our global privacy statement as changes occur—including incorporating Data Privacy Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and new certifications.
Global Privacy Statement
Read the full PowerSchool Global Privacy Statement to learn how we ensure data privacy and security.
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