#Video footage sharing requirements under FERPA
Under FERPA, any video footage maintained by the school that directly relates to a student is an education record..
The practical consequence is this: when a parent requests footage of an incident involving their child, the school must provide it. If that footage also shows other students, the school is required to redact the faces and identifiable details of those other students before sharing anything.
#The challenge of FERPA-compliant video footage redaction
Most schools don’t plan for video redaction to become a recurring task, so they often decide to use readily available video editing tools like Adobe to redact clips manually.
The issue with this approach is that it’s time-consuming: going frame by frame through a clip and blurring faces and PII by hand can take hours for a two-minute video.
For busy teams with other tasks at hand, there’s also the risk of missing a frame, making the video non-compliant.
The other common workaround is outsourcing: sending footage to a third-party redaction service. However, uploading unredacted video containing minors' PII to an external platform is a disclosure of student data to a third party. To stay FERPA-compliant, the best practice is to complete video redaction projects on-premise, without relying on cloud-based services.
Read about FERPA compliance for CCTV footage in schools in this article.
#Identity Cloak: on-premise video redaction for FERPA compliance
Identity Cloak is Facit's AI-powered video redaction software. It is installed directly on your institution's hardware and operates within your own secure network.
Facit does not transfer or access your video files. The only data exchanged with Facit's servers is a licence key and device name.
When a parent requests footage of their child, your team processes the clip in-house, blurs every other student's face and other types of identifiable information, and exports a compliant redacted file.
What you need to know about Identity Cloak:
It automatically detects and tracks faces, full bodies, and licence plates across the entire clip — including fast-moving individuals and crowded spaces
It lets staff manually adjust blur settings when needed, with customisable blur size, shape, and transparency
Identity Cloak supports MP4 and AVI formats, with a built-in screen recorder to handle legacy formats
#Identity Cloak in practice: customer case studies
#North Plainfield School District, New Jersey
North Plainfield is a diverse district serving approximately 3,700 students. It saw an increase in parent requests for footage of incidents and needed a solution that would automate video redaction.
Stuart Buckman, Safety & Security Specialist at North Plainfield Schools, described the stakes clearly:
We have to redact the faces and all other personally identifiable information relating to anyone captured on video. We’d be in huge trouble for a data breach if anyone was able to see or access unredacted video.
Read the full North Plainfield case study.
#Chignecto Central Regional Centre for Education (CCRCE), Nova Scotia
The Chignecto Central Regional Centre for Education in Nova Scotia, Canada faced a similar challenge. CCRE deployed Identity Cloak to reduce the time staff spent on FOIP (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Regulation) footage requests.
David Meade, Regional Information Technology Specialist at CCRCE, noted the operational impact directly:
Before Identity Cloak, redacting videos was a tedious and time-consuming process. … Now, I can focus on my other IT priorities with confidence, knowing FOIP requests are handled efficiently and compliantly.
Get started with Identity Cloak
Identity Cloak can be downloaded and running within 15 minutes, with a 7-day free trial that requires no credit card. Facit offers discounts for schools and other educational organisations. To find out more, get in touch with our team.
