Text Message Information
Data Privacy
Empire State University is a good steward of information, respecting the privacy of our prospective, current, and graduated students as well as employees. Information security policies can be found at www.esc.edu/policies. The privacy of all students is protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). The use of the university's SMS/texting services requires the university to collect and share directory information as defined by the university’s policy “Adherence to Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974”. For additional information on FERPA, and to prevent disclosure of any directory information visit the FERPA information webpage
More information about data security, including information for prospective students and employees, can be found in the policy for “Enterprise Data Classification”, and the “General Data Protection and Regulations Privacy Policy”.
To facilitate text messaging services, Empire State University contracts with a third party vendor. Directory Information, as defined by the university's FERPA policy, is shared with the vendor. Empire State University will never send, or share, FERPA protected information or student records for the purposes of SMS/texting. SMS/text messages are not student records and are not retained in accordance with the university's Record Retention Policy.
Students are discouraged from texting private or sensitive information to Empire State University. Texting the university may result in an unintended sharing of personal data. As such, if a student engages in a text conversation with the university, the student may be asked to move to another form of communication such as email or the telephone. SMS/text messages are sent using a proxy number.
Terms and Conditions
Empire State University offers two separate text campaigns. One campaign offers texts regarding information, events and deadlines of the university. The other is for emergency purposes.
Texting "HELP" to any of the texts received from the university will return instructions on how to get assistance. Additional instructions for assistance follow.
Help and assistance for students and employees using text messaging is provided through the IT Service desk. The service desk can be reached by phone at 888-Help-009 (888-435-7009), by email service-desk@esc.edu or by chat esc.edu/ITChat.
Help and assistance for students regarding information found in a text can be provided by 1 Stop or by calling 800-847-3000.
Applicants and prospective students can Opt in into text messaging from the "Create an Account" and "Inquiry" forms. Opting in to texts for emergency alerts is done from the Safety and Security webpage.
Texts from Empire State University are recurring. Frequency depends on activity during the term and may be specific to the person receiving the texts for personal messages. For emergency texts frequency may depend on the weather.
Opting out of all texts offered by Empire State University can be done by texting STOP in response to the received text message.
Opting out of emergency texts that inform students and employees about emergencies and/or system notifications can also be done through Banner Self Service, by choosing "no".
When opting out of text messages, you agree to one additional confirmation message stating that you've opted out, after which you will no longer receive text messages from that category unless you opt in again.
For all text categories message and data rates may apply.
Policy
For more information about using text messaging at Empire State University, you can access Use of Text Messaging Services on the university's policy webpage.