Compliance complexity is growing for schools operating across jurisdictions. This deep-dive covers data residency requirements, consent frameworks, sub-processor obligations, and how to audit your EdTech vendors.
Why compliance is harder than it looks
A school operating in India with students who have UK or EU citizenship, or a school network with campuses in multiple countries, faces overlapping regulatory frameworks. FERPA governs US student educational records. GDPR governs personal data of EU residents. India's DPDP Act (2023) introduces domestic obligations. Navigating all three simultaneously requires systematic data governance, not just legal awareness.
Data residency: the question IT directors ask first
Under GDPR Article 44, personal data may not be transferred to a country outside the EEA without adequate protection. For schools using cloud-based EdTech platforms, this means asking where student data is physically stored, who has access to it, and under what legal mechanism the transfer occurs.
NeramIQ offers data residency configuration at the tenant level — Indian schools store data in Mumbai (ap-south-1), EU schools in Frankfurt (eu-central-1), with no cross-region replication by default.
What to audit in your EdTech vendors
Before renewing any EdTech contract, IT directors should request: (1) a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) naming all sub-processors, (2) evidence of annual penetration testing, (3) a data deletion policy with SLA commitments, (4) details of encryption at rest and in transit, and (5) an incident response procedure with notification timelines.
NeramIQ provides all five as standard in its enterprise agreement. Our sub-processor list is published and updated quarterly.
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