Educational Institutions process a massive amount of information that contains personally identifiable information, or PII, on their students, faculty members, and staff. One of the biggest problems for Educational Institutions when it comes to meeting cybersecurity requirements is that there are too many standards, laws, and regulations that it is challenging to keep up with the requirements for each. Below is a list of these data protection requirements: 

• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) – US federal law that requires the privacy of student records.
• Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) – Requires higher education institutions to protect sensitive student data. 
• Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) – Requires that educational institutions that receive funds from the US Department of Education protect their students sensitive personal information. 
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Requires the protection of personal data of European Union (EU) students and employees. 
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – Requires that schools protect the health information of students, whether it is insurance or medical information.
• Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) – Promotes and expands on health information technology with a focus on electronic health records. 
• Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) – US federal law that focuses on financial institutions and applies to higher education institutions since they deal with large amounts of money. 
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) – Educational Institutions that receive card payments must comply with their established security standards in order to process payments within their network. 
• Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) – US law that requires universities that work on federal research projects to protect sensitive information.
• National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-171 – Requires that higher educational institutions that deal with government information protect their sensitive data. 

Although all of these standards, laws, and regulations have specific requirements, they all have a central theme revolving around protecting data. The best offense is a great defense, and thats why data sanitization is one of the key tenants to a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. The NIST 800.88 Guidelines for Media Sanitization outlines proven methods to remove data from data storage devices such as servers, PC, smartphones, and tablets. 

Clarabyte supports each of these standards, laws, and regulations by offering certified data erasure tools that remove 100% of data from any IT asset. Where other data removal techniques fall short, certified data erasure with Clarabyte is able to guarantee that no traces of data will remain on a device. 

Clarabyte provides secure data removal that meets over 14 security compliance standards, including the National Institute of Security and Technology (NIST) and Department of Defense (DoD).