PHP Development and Educational Regulatory Compliance

For PHP developers in the EdTech sector, working with educational regulatory compliance involves implementing the technical features required by privacy and accessibility laws. The developer's role is to translate legal requirements from standards like FERPA, GDPR, and WCAG into secure, robust, and compliant code.

The Developer's Role in Compliance

This is not a legal role but a technical one focused on implementation. Responsibilities include building systems that protect student data, manage user consent, and ensure the platform is accessible to users with disabilities. It requires a meticulous approach to software development where security and data privacy are primary concerns throughout the entire development lifecycle.

Technical Implementation of Compliance

• Data Privacy: Implementing strong encryption for data at rest and in transit, granular access controls, and data anonymization features to comply with FERPA and GDPR.
• Accessibility: Ensuring web interfaces are built to meet WCAG standards.
• Security: Writing secure code to prevent common vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL injection, XSS) that could lead to data breaches.
• Data Governance: Building features for data retention policies and user data export or deletion requests.