Welcome back! We hope that you have had a great summer break and a chance to refresh and recharge ready for the year ahead. We are looking forward to working with you and hope to see you soon!
Here is a summary of the latest updates and alerts for your organisation:
Important Alerts and Urgent Updates
- New SAR Reporting Tool
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has recently launched a new system for individuals to use to submit SARs to organisations. Important to be aware of this if your school receives a request via this system. - Use of WhatsApp by School Staff
The ICO has issued a reprimand to NHS Lanarkshire, following staff’s unauthorised use of WhatsApp to share patients’ personal data over the course of two years.
We have written an article on this subject and the lessons that schools can learn from the incident. - Privacy Notices
The DfE updated its privacy notice model documents. The changes are minor and we have now updated our templates with the relevant information. More details on this can be found in the ‘Latest SchoolPro Information’ section below.
General Data Protection Updates
- The DfE has updated its guidance for local authorities and schools dealing with adults who have legal rights and responsibilities for a child. The guidance has been updated to include guidance on the role of the ‘corporate parent’, releasing GCSE results to a parent and notifying separated parents about a child moving school.
- The ICO has published new guidance on sending bulk communications by email.
“According to ICO data, failure to use BCC correctly is consistently within the top 10 non-cyber breaches, with nearly a thousand reported since 2019. The education sector is the biggest offender for BCC breaches…” - The Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner has published their response to the OPC consultation on biometric information.
A key point for schools to consider is “the issue of storage of sensitive material… whether cloud-based solutions are appropriate…, as the location of servers in third countries raises jurisdictional questions around legislation permitting third party access.” - For schools that use Zoom still, this article is worth a read:
Zoom found itself as the subject of a backlash over an online update to its terms related to AI, what its response has been, plus what this says about how businesses feel about AI. (ReformIT)
Latest SchoolPro TLC Information
- Another reminder, as INSET training is very topical right now, on the importance of staff training. Staff should be trained on data protection as part of their induction and then refreshed at least every 2 years if not annually (which would be best practice).
- We have now updated our privacy notice templates in line with the updated guidance provided by the DfE. The updates are fairly minor so are not urgent for updating unless you are currently reviewing your documents.
The changes are mostly to change references to the DfE to ‘Department for Education (DfE)’ in all cases and remove statistics on pupil data shares.
The changes apply to the following privacy notice templates (short versions are not impacted):- Privacy Notice for Primary Academy Pupils and Parents
- Privacy Notice for Primary School Pupils and Parents
- Privacy Notice for School and Trust Governance Roles
- Privacy Notice for Secondary School Pupils & Parents
- Privacy Notice for Academy Workforce
- Privacy Notice for School Workforce
- We have also updated our Acceptable Use Agreement (Staff) based on recent ICO guidance in the wake of a serious data breach in a primary school.
The new version of the document contains a brand new section – “System Specific Guidelines & Procedures”. This is broken down into the following sub-sections (which can be amended and/or further added to):- Use of Electronic Whiteboards and Screensharing
- School Management Information System (MIS)
- School Safeguarding System (e.g. CPOMS, MyConcern, Provision Map)
- We have converted our most recent guidance and update blogs into pdf documents that can now be accessed and downloaded from the ‘Guidance’ folder of Global Documents. This includes the following guidance documents:
- 🚸 KCSIE ’22 – Guidance for Online Checks of Job Applicants
- 🔓 Lessons from a Data Breach: 📋 Guidance for Schools, Colleges & MATs
- 🛡️ New SchoolPro TLC Cyber Security Standards Audit Tool
- 📣 Strikes, Union Membership & Data Protection
- ⚠️ Taking Subject Access Requests Seriously
- 📱 WhatsApp in Schools A Guide to Safe and Compliant Use
- We’ve also recently added the following document to the portal in Global Documents:
- Data Protection Support Guidance Document – 1-Page Reminder of How to Access SchoolPro TLC’s Data Protection Support
You can also see this document and download a copy at the bottom of this email 👇
- Data Protection Support Guidance Document – 1-Page Reminder of How to Access SchoolPro TLC’s Data Protection Support
- As mentioned at the start of the summer break, we are pleased to inform you that we have organised a complimentary advisory session in partnership with Peninsula UK for our clients who may be facing challenges or have issues regarding HR, employment law, and health and safety matters. Get Complimentary Advice From The Market Leading HR and H&S Provider.
Further information on a range of data protection topics is available on our blog.
If you have any other questions, please contact us at DPO@schoolpro.uk.
Looking forward to a great academic year ahead!
SchoolPro TLC Ltd (2023)
SchoolPro TLC guidance does not constitute legal advice.
SchoolPro TLC is not responsible for the content of external websites.
