Do College Professors have access to student personal information?

[Anonymous]

Like can they find out what age their student is, date of birth, ect?

[Warren]

Professors have access to the same information anyone else would. With just your name I can find out pretty much everything about you. Your age and birthday, your place of birth, criminal record, address, financial situation, your family ties, where you work, etc. And that's without even going near Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/Youtube and other social networking sites which would tell me anything else I might want to know.

If you're wondering if they can access information from the Registrar's office... probably not. You'll want to read the Privacy Policy at your particular institution. For instance in the USA you need to sign a waiver to allow for your academic information to be shared, but the extent to which a professor can just walk up and say "Hey I need to contact Student X, what is his info?" would vary from school to school.

These days, though, websites like Angel and Blackboard eliminate the need for sharing of that sort.

[thtdiablo]

I don't know how it works in the US but here (Switzerland) they don't. They can only access the grades they have entered themselves into the system, not even the other grades nor anything like that.

[KJT6989]

Yes anything you put on your application they have access to it!

[sovetskii13]

Yes. They can even track what you do on the college website that you use for your classes. I don't like it, but that's the way it is.