Does FERPA apply to my EdTech startup if we're not a school?

If your platform receives data from a school or district, or if your product is used in an educational institution in a way that gives you access to student education records, FERPA's School Official exception applies to you. You become a 'school official' with a 'legitimate educational interest' obligation — meaning you must protect those records under the same rules as the school. Most EdTech vendors are covered.

Our platform is used by children under 13. What does COPPA require from our code?

COPPA requires verifiable parental consent before collecting any personal information from children under 13, strict limits on what you can collect and how long you retain it, no behavioral advertising, and a clear privacy policy written for parents. In code, this means your consent flow, data collection forms, and third-party SDK integrations all need to be audited for COPPA compliance. We check all of these.

A school district asked for a security questionnaire. Can you help us answer it?

Yes. Our audit gives you a clear picture of your actual security posture — not just what you think your controls are. We map our findings to common EdTech procurement security questionnaires, SDPC Data Privacy Agreement requirements, and state-level school privacy laws, so you can answer district security teams with confidence.

VibeAudits

EdTech Code Audit

EdTech Platforms Hold Student Data.FERPA and COPPA Are Not Optional.

Security and compliance code audits for learning management systems, tutoring platforms, student information systems, and AI-powered education tools built with Cursor, Claude, Lovable, or any AI coding assistant.

Educational technology platforms frequently handle data about minors and student academic records — two categories with the strongest privacy protections in US law. AI-generated EdTech code commonly misses FERPA and COPPA requirements, has weak parental consent flows, and exposes student data through standard API vulnerabilities. We find these issues before a school district or regulator does.

60-minute strategy call · fixed-price quote within 24 hours · most audits start within the same week.

What Goes Wrong

The EdTech Code Bugs We Find Most Often

These are not hypothetical risks. These are the patterns we find in real edtech & learning platforms codebases built with AI coding tools — Cursor, Claude, Lovable, Bolt, Replit, and GitHub Copilot. Every item below is something we can find, report on, and help you fix.

Student Data Exposure and FERPA Violations

FERPA protects student education records and restricts their disclosure without consent. Vibe-coded LMS and SIS platforms frequently expose grade data, attendance records, or enrollment information through overly permissive APIs or missing access controls. We audit every data access path against FERPA's requirements.

COPPA Compliance for Products Serving Under-13s

Apps used by children under 13 must comply with COPPA — verifiable parental consent before collecting personal data, limited data retention, and no behavioral advertising. AI-generated consent flows are frequently insufficient. We audit your consent mechanism, data collection scope, and retention policies.

AI Tutoring and Assessment Integrity

LLM-powered tutoring, essay feedback, and automated grading have a unique risk surface: students attempting to jailbreak the AI for answers, inconsistent grading that creates fairness concerns, and AI output that's acted on without sufficient human review. We audit every AI feature in educational contexts.

Multi-Role Access for Students, Parents, and Teachers

EdTech platforms need strict separation between student, parent, teacher, and administrator roles. Vibe-coded access control in educational apps often has gaps: parents seeing other students' data, students accessing admin features, or teachers able to modify records they shouldn't.

Video and Communication Platform Security

Virtual classroom, tutoring session recording, and direct messaging features in EdTech platforms need careful security design — especially when minors are involved. We audit communication features for unauthorized access, recording storage security, and appropriate data retention.

School District and Enterprise Procurement Requirements

Selling to schools and districts means passing their security questionnaires. We give you a clear picture of your posture against the Student Data Privacy Consortium agreement, state student privacy laws, and common district security requirements.

Compliance & Regulatory Context

EdTech platforms face FERPA (student records), COPPA (under-13 users), state student privacy laws (SOPIPA and others), and GDPR for European users. We review your code and data practices against the requirements that apply to your user base.

FERPACOPPASOPIPAGDPR

Our Review Covers

A Full Code Audit Tailored to EdTech

Our edtech & learning platforms code audit combines a general production-readiness review with edtech-specific security and compliance checks. You get a single prioritized report covering everything — not a generic scanner output.

Security vulnerabilities and authentication gaps

Access control and multi-tenancy isolation

EdTech-specific compliance and regulatory controls

Payment, billing, and financial logic (where applicable)

AI feature risks: prompt injection, data leakage, cost controls

Architecture, scalability, and performance bottlenecks

Secrets, API keys, and environment configuration

Third-party integration security and data flow

Use Cases We Cover

EdTech Apps We Audit

We work across the full range of edtech & learning platforms products built with AI coding tools. If your app touches this space, we can audit it.

Learning management systems for K-12 and higher ed

AI-powered tutoring and homework help platforms

Online course and curriculum delivery platforms

Student information and school administration systems

Assessment and proctoring tools

STEM coding education platforms

Language learning apps

Corporate training and L&D platforms

VibeAudits Services for EdTech Teams

Whether you need a full security audit, help getting a stuck app to production, or coaching on the AI tools you're building with — we have a service for exactly where you are right now.

Code Audit

What You Get at the End of a EdTech Code Audit

A single, prioritized report — not a raw scanner dump. Every finding includes a severity rating, reproduction steps, and concrete guidance your team or AI tools can act on immediately.

Prioritized Security Findings

Every vulnerability and exposure in your edtech app, ranked by severity and business impact with fix-ready remediation steps.

EdTech-Specific Compliance Gaps

A clear list of the FERPA, COPPA, SOPIPA, GDPR control gaps in your code — mapped to specific lines and components, not just framework-level policies.

Reliability and Edge Case Report

The billing bugs, race conditions, and flow failures that work fine in a demo but break in front of real customers — documented with reproduction steps.

Architecture and Performance Notes

The scalability bottlenecks, N+1 queries, and structural issues most likely to cause problems as your user base grows — with practical recommendations.

AI Feature Risk Assessment

If your app uses AI features, a dedicated section covers prompt injection vectors, cross-user data leakage, cost guard gaps, and unsafe tool execution.

Founder-Friendly Executive Summary

A plain-English summary you can share with co-founders, investors, or enterprise procurement teams — no security jargon required.

FAQ

EdTech Code Audit: Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions from edtech & learning platforms founders and technical teams before booking a code audit.

Code Audits for Other Industries

Ready to Audit Your EdTech App?

Book a free 60-minute intro call. We review your repo, identify the highest-risk areas, and send a fixed-price quote within 24 hours. Most edtech & learning platforms audits kick off within the same week.

NDA available before any code is shared · FERPA · COPPA · SOPIPA · GDPR · Fixed-price engagements