Kentucky reaches $350,000 settlement with ACT after student information released

The Kentucky Department of Education has reached a settlement with ACT for $350,000 after information about Kentucky students who took the ACT was released in error to postsecondary institutions, officials said Thursday.

The ACT is a required test for Kentucky students and all data generated from the test is owned by the Kentucky Department of Education so the information should not have been available for sharing, Kentucky Department of Education officials said in a news release.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass said the several kinds of data shared erroneously by ACT -- ranging from names to race and grade point average -- was marked by students as information to share with colleges.

“This was not a data breach or anything similar,” Glass said in a news release. “No information was shared about our students that they didn’t agree to share themselves. However, the sharing of this data directly violated our contract with ACT, and we are happy to hear they have corrected the matter.”

Catherine Hofmann, ACT vice president of state and federal programs, said in the news release that ACT removed the records from the database and the information won’t be shared in the future.

ACT began on March 18 notifying students who were affected.