Recently, public college and university campuses have been inundated with public records requests for the personal information of students. These requests seek information such as student names, home and school addresses, dates of birth, telephone and cellphone numbers, email addresses, areas of study, graduation dates, parents’ names, and their home addresses. Frequently, campuses feel compelled to provide this information as it has been designated as a "public record" for the purposes of complying with the state's public records laws.

This legislation amends Chapter 66 so that campuses would not be required to comply with public records requests for student data that is defined as an "education record" in the federal Family Education and Privacy Act (FERPA), including records that have been designated by campuses as "directory information."