Data Protection and old SIMS users

[Laurence]

Hi

Does anyone know the rules for keeping user details on SIMS re Data Protection? A revision of staff ID rules at school has precipitated a discussion about how to delete users from SIMS. Most think is not possible to delete old users, but I think this is a data protection issue as we have details far beyond the recommended 6 years to clear any reporting requirements. But if there is no method of removing old users, then are most schools vulnerable to Data Protection contravention?

 

Any thoughts?

[Steve21]

Do you mean SIMs users, or staff on SIMs? The actual SIMs users account shouldn't really contain much information on the person.

 

Steve

[Laurence]

Hi Steve. Staff users, things like address, next of kin, DOB etc. Much of which is likely to be out of date. In any case can never assumed to be right.

 

Laurence

[forkies]

We have investigated removing both old students (beyond the requirements) and old staff from sims. This is the most annoying and time consuming task possible. It never works as throws so many errors about it having linked items that you would spend about 3 days trying to remove everything for one member of staff. And even then it may not work depending on what they are linked to or what is linked to them.

 

Capita have said (I am sure) they are going to design around the new GDPR requirements so I assume they will be redesigning the interface and links to make it easier to delete dats about leavers, and in bulk!

[Laurence]

Thanks Forkies

 

Bit of a minefield this isn't it. My network manager did explain the difficulties because of the attachment to other data and the number of errors thrown up. Capita are not on the ball with this at all are they? Just been reading the Gov Employment Practices Code where it states...

 

2.15.1 Establish and adhere to standard retention times for the various categories of information to be held on the records of workers and former workers. Base the retention times on business need taking into account relevant professional guidelines.

 

2.15.2 Anonymise any information about workers and former workers where practicable.

 

2.15.3 If the holding of any information on criminal convictions of workers is justified, ensure that the information is deleted once the conviction is ‘spent’ under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

 

2.15.4 Ensure that records which are to be disposed of are securely and effectively destroyed.

 

.... how manys schools follow this I wonder?

[enjay]

2.15.2 Anonymise any information about workers and former workers where practicable.

 

So, accepting we can't delete ex-staff from SIMS, how about we rename them? As long as the person who renames me keeps no record of what they renamed me to, our ex-staff would just be Mr 1, Mrs 2 and so on, thus anonymised. We'd still need to do a bit of work removing next of kin and such like (otherwise it would be fairly obvious who Mr 4 with a wife called Mrs Smith was), but it could be done and would, I think, make us compliant.

[elsiegee40]

If there is any sort of of investigation into allegations of (historic) abuse concerning a former member of staff, the school will be expected to have records.

 

I suspect schools will have rights to hang on to more detail concerning former staff members than may be assumed

@GrumbleDook what is your view on retaining data concerning former staff members?

[KibosJ]

We have managed to remove old students from SIMS but staff is a different matter altogether, if they have previously logged in to SIMS then you cannot remove them :/

 

Capita just tell me they are aware of the issue!

[enjay]

If there is any sort of of investigation into allegations of (historic) abuse concerning a former member of staff, the school will be expected to have records.

The school would be expected to keep records of the abuse allegation (for 25 years, isn't it?), but that doesn't mean they need to keep all the other records, such as addresses, phone numbers, next-of-kin, medical conditions, etc. The fact we need to keep some data on former staff doesn't mean we need to keep everything we currently have on them.