This is the time of year when schools publish notices about families’ privacy rights, and the circumstances when information about a student — such as basic contact information — can be given to anyone who asks.

One organization has been granted special access by Congress, however, to student information. That’s the military. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) contains a provision requiring schools to provide students’ names, addresses, and phone numbers to military recruiters, upon request by recruiters. The penalty to schools for not doing so is potential loss of federal funds.

Access to that information has enabled the Pentagon to build one of the largest personal information databases in the country.

Its JAMRS (Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies) database is, in fact, considered perhaps the largest repository of 16-25-year-old youth data in the country.

The Pentagon has combined data it sweeps up from schools with data from other government databases and from private data “aggregator” companies. The result is a massive trove of information about young Americans.

Parents and their students have the right to “opt out” of this disclosure of personal information, however. Vermont law requires that notice of this right be given to families. It’s up to families to exercise it.

Read more about student opt-out rights and how to submit an opt-out form to your school.

(You may control the release of your contact information to recruiters or other organizations; you also have the right to have information released, say, to colleges where you might want to apply, but withhold release of the information to the military.)