What Is It?

In compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), CU Boulder is committed to protecting your education record by limiting disclosure of your personal (non-directory) information.

If you need to contact CU about your student record, we'll ask you to verify your identity by either showing us your photo ID or by stating your established security passphrase. If you haven't set a passphrase, you’ll be asked to do so before we can disclose any information.

The security passphrase is intended to protect your privacy, so don't share it with anyone. If you want a third party (e.g., a parent or guardian) to have access to your record, you'll need to establish CU guest access and/or complete a FERPA consent to release for them.

Passphrase Guidelines

Your passphrase can be up to 50 alphabetical characters (numbers, symbols and special characters are not accepted), and should be easy to remember but difficult to guess.

To foster a safe and welcoming campus environment, please do not use lewd, intimidating, abusive or threatening language in your passphrase. If you do, CU staff have the right to refuse service and refer you to the Office of Student Conduct.

How to Set It & View It

  1. Log in to Buff Portal.
  2. Select your profile at the top right.
  3. Select "Account Settings," then "Profile and Privacy."
  4. In the pop-up menu, select "Security Passphrase."
    1. If you've already set your passphrase, you'll see it in the security passphrase field near the bottom of the screen.
    2. If the field is blank, type in your passphrase and select "Save."