Confidentiality Policy
The ADA & Disabilities Resource Center strives to treat all personal information with the strictest confidentiality. We respect the privacy of individuals and will advocate in favor of confidentiality whenever possible.
The ADA Center regards its information on students as educational records. Educational records fall under different rules than do medical records, and the ADA Center advises students to note the difference. Thus, the ADA Center prefers that documentation of disabling conditions provided by students should be limited to that which is necessary to establish the disability and the right to an accommodation in an educational setting. Please refer to the handout, "Disability Verification for Students," for more details on what is entailed to verify a disability and the right to accommodation.
The ADA Center may release information to other University faculty and staff when a "need to know" some or all of that information is established by the ADA Center. The need to know must be based on compelling and legitimate educational reasons for the information disclosure. Generally speaking, University faculty and staff do not need to know what the student's disability is. These University officials merely need to know that the ADA Center verified the disability and the right to reasonable accommodations. Faculty and staff, outside of the ADA Center, have no right to access student files directly. On occasion, internal auditing and monitoring of student information may occur, but only under the strictest confidentiality protections.
Written authorizations to release confidential information to persons or entities outside of the University will be obtained from the student before any such information is released. This includes parents. On occasion, third parties such as courts of law, civil rights investigators, etc. may legally order the ADA Center to release information with or without a signed authorization from the student.
For each student served, the ADA Center creates a paper file that contains internal and external documents. The ADA Center owns and maintains these files in secure storage for up to five years after the last year in which the student was enrolled in the University. After that time, the ADA Center destroys the physical file and all its contents.
The ADA Center encourages students to obtain and keep copies of their documentation for future use. Students may receive copies of their files on request. In addition, students may give written permission for copies of the files to go to a third party however, only ADA Center personnel may directly access the file.
In addition to paper files, the ADA Center keeps some electronic information on students. The electronic records are kept in an internal data base in the ADA Center. Only ADA Center personnel access the ADA Center internal database. It is used mainly for file management and service tracking purposes. Electronic records are not expunged.
Occasionally, a student's diagnostician has stamped the student's documentation with admonishments not to release copies of the documentation to anyone, including the student in question. The ADA Center will not accept disability documentation marked with a stamp or some other means that the documentation may not be released without the permission of the diagnostician or other entity. Such documentation will be returned to the sender with the ADA Center keeping no records of the restricted documentation. The ADA Center will then inform the student that the documentation was unacceptable and request the student to provide acceptable documentation explaining the reasons the documentation was unacceptable. Remember that the ADA Center considers the documentation as educational records. Thus, the ADA Center will not accept any restrictions that may limit or deny passing information to the student and other appropriate parties.