Code Audit for Education

FERPA, COPPA, and State Privacy Laws Compound Fast

Education software operates in a regulatory environment that most developers underestimate. FERPA governs how student education records are handled. COPPA adds restrictions when students are under 13. State laws like California’s SOPIPA or New York’s Education Law 2-d layer additional requirements on top. Districts have their own security review processes, and failing one can lock you out of an entire market.

A generic code audit won’t catch the education-specific issues that matter. It won’t verify that your “directory information” handling matches FERPA definitions. It won’t check whether your analytics implementation inadvertently creates student profiles that violate COPPA. It won’t evaluate whether your LMS integration shares more student data than the directory consent covers.

We audit edtech code with student privacy as the central concern. Every finding ties back to the regulations and district requirements that determine whether you can sell into schools.

Student Data Flows, LMS Integrations, and Accessibility

Student data flows are the foundation. We map every path that student information takes through your system - from account creation through daily usage to data deletion. We identify what qualifies as an “education record” under FERPA and verify that access controls, sharing mechanisms, and retention policies handle it correctly. We check for student data in unexpected places: analytics events, error logs, third-party integrations, and support tools.

COPPA compliance gets special attention for K-12 products. We verify that your consent mechanisms meet COPPA’s requirements for children under 13. We check whether your product collects persistent identifiers, geolocation, or other personal information in ways that require verifiable parental consent. We evaluate your data minimization practices - are you collecting only what’s necessary for the educational purpose?

LMS integrations are a common weak point. We review your LTI, SAML, and rostering implementations for security and reliability. We check how you handle roster syncs - particularly when students transfer, classes merge, or school years roll over. We verify that grade passback is accurate and that your integration doesn’t break when the LMS updates its API.

Accessibility is a legal and ethical requirement. We evaluate your core workflows against WCAG 2.1 AA standards. We check keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, color contrast, and form labeling. For education products, accessibility isn’t optional - it’s often a procurement requirement and a potential ADA liability.

Authentication and access controls are reviewed with education roles in mind. Teachers, students, parents, and administrators all have different permission levels. We verify that role boundaries are enforced consistently, that students can’t access teacher tools, that parents only see their own children’s data, and that district administrators can manage access appropriately.

Tracing Student Records Through Every Code Path

We begin by understanding your deployment context. Are you serving K-12, higher education, or both? Which LMS platforms do you integrate with? What district security review processes have you encountered? This context shapes which regulations apply and where we focus.

Then we conduct a systematic code review following student data through your application. We trace every data collection point, every storage location, every sharing mechanism, and every deletion pathway. We verify that FERPA’s “legitimate educational interest” principle is enforced in code, not just in policy documents.

We test access control boundaries by attempting to cross them. Can a student in one class see another class’s data? Can a parent access a student who isn’t their child? Can a teacher from one school access another school’s data? We test these scenarios through both the UI and API layers.

For LMS integrations, we simulate the real-world scenarios that cause failures. A roster sync with 5,000 students. A mid-semester class merge. A student who appears in the roster but hasn’t completed onboarding. These edge cases break edtech platforms during the busiest times of the school year.

A Report Your Engineers, Compliance, and Sales Teams All Use

Your report serves three audiences. Your engineering team gets code-level findings with specific file locations, reproduction steps, and remediation guidance. Your compliance team gets a regulation-by-regulation assessment showing which FERPA, COPPA, and state privacy requirements are met, partially met, or missing. Your sales team gets a summary they can share with district IT departments during procurement reviews.

We provide a remediation plan prioritized by two factors: compliance risk and sales impact. Issues that could fail a district security review get top priority because they directly affect revenue. Technical improvements that reduce long-term maintenance burden come next.

For accessibility findings, we include specific WCAG success criteria references and remediation patterns. Many accessibility issues follow common patterns - fixing one instance often fixes dozens. We identify these patterns so your team can remediate efficiently rather than fixing issues one at a time.

For investors evaluating edtech acquisitions, our audit quantifies FERPA and COPPA remediation scope and the cost to pass district security reviews - the gates that determine whether the product can actually sell into schools. Your deal team gets a clear picture of compliance readiness and the engineering investment required to unlock the institutional market.