August 1, 2002

Dear Colleagues,

The South Carolina General Assembly recently passed legislation known as the Family Privacy Protection Act (FPPA), which will have some implications for the College. The thrust of the legislation is to prevent state agencies from collecting personal information from its employees without notice of its consequences and disseminating this information to third parties, who then use the information for the commercial solicitation. Commercial solicitation means contact by telephone, mail, or electronic mail for the purpose of marketing a consumer product or service.

The College of Charleston and the other public colleges and universities in the State are discussing how best to comply with this well-intentioned, but somewhat murky legislation. Pending the adoption of a more formal policy, if you collect personal information from students, faculty or staff, you must include notice at the time of collection that the information is subject to public scrutiny or release. Additionally, if you have a request from a third party for personal information regarding one of our students or employees, please attempt to ascertain whether the intended use will be commercial solicitation. If the answer is yes, then our preliminary response to the request must be no. If the use appears to be non-commercial, you must still include the following language when you disseminate the information to third parties: Pursuant to the South Carolina Family Privacy Protection Act, please be advised that use of this information for commercial purposes is prohibited by law and violation of this Act may result in criminal penalties.

And finally, until the College makes a final decision about which office on campus should have responsibility for compliance with FPPA, please direct all FPPA questions or inquiries to me.

Thanks. --Andy

Andrew L. Abrams
Provost and Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs