A pair of Southern New Hampshire University students are claiming the school shares students’ sensitive personal information, including their GPAs, ethnicities and contact information, with Google and TikTok, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
The students say the university has allowed the companies to deploy “surreptitious online tracking tools” on its student portal, mySNHU, to gather the information, in violation of FERPA, the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
“Why an educational institution like SNHU would choose to disclose this vast trove of private information is simple: to help the university market itself and grow its student base,” Tina Zeolla and Kirsten Kellogg, lawyers representing the students, wrote in their complaint.
A university spokesperson wrote in a statement that SNHU is aware of the lawsuit and reviewing the allegations made in it.
“SNHU takes data privacy seriously and remains committed to protecting the privacy of our students, faculty, and staff in accordance with applicable law,” Siobhan Lopez, the director of media relations, wrote.
SNHU is one of the largest online universities in the country, with over 180,000 students. The school also has approximately 3,000 students enrolled in person at its Manchester campus.
The students who sued have asked a New Hampshire federal court to certify the lawsuit as a class action covering all students who have accessed mySNHU, which SNHU students rely on to manage their courses and check their academic records.
SNHU uses a suite of analytics tools, including Google Analytics and TikTok Pixel on its portal, according to the lawsuit.
“In exchange for access to these Business Tools, website operators install Google and TikTok’s surveillance software on their website,” the lawyers for the students wrote.
That software transmits a host of data stored in the portal, including students’ full names, contact information, ethnicities, gender identities, career status, military status, financial aid application information, descriptions of their enrolled courses and their cumulative GPA, according to the lawsuit.
The university does not obtain authorization from students to share the information, the students allege.
Lawsuits alleging data tracking violations, including at universities, have proliferated in recent years. However, the scope of private information alleged to have been shared by SNHU appears broader than in other cases.
In 2022, the publication The Markup reported that the Department of Education had used a tool called Meta Pixel on its Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The software shared with Meta the names, email addresses and zip codes of students who filled out the application, according to The Markup.
The plaintiffs in the SNHU case are residents of Massachusetts and Michigan.
Their lawyers, of the firms Weintraum Law and Siri & Glimstad, did not respond to requests for comment.