GDPR - Teacher notebooks/planners/etc

[FragglePete]

I'm running through a number of scenarios where GDPR comes into effect with student personal data, etc - and if need be, what solution/policies/etc need to be tweaked/introduced to ensure we're covered.

 

As GDPR covers paper records, the question in this case is teachers doing marking at home. A lot of them carry around with them planners which in a lot of cases they use to keep track progress, etc so in effect falls under Personal Data. Teachers take books home to mark, and update their planners accordingly so how do we cover ourselves here?

 

Thoughts on this?

 

Pete

[rom1984]

Do you currently have a procedure in place that deals with this under the current Data Protection Act?

 

If so I don't think the GDPR will have too much of an impact on your current procedure, presuming there is one in place that is compatible with the current DPA.

 

The only relevant thing that springs to mind is that under the DPA a Privacy Impact Assessment wasn't mandatory. Where as under the GDPR a PIA is mandatory when there is a high risk to the rights of the data subject so if you felt this was high risk, then you would be obliged to do a PIA covering it.

[jdoyle]

as well as the potential need for a PIA, there would be a need to determine the lawful basis with GDPR.

 

The ICO indicated with the DPA that the teacher notes for their own use are not part of the students "educational record" which precludes legal obligation as a basis for processing

 

It may be worthwhile providing some formal guidance to teachers re the confidential nature of the data, what should and should not be recorded, archiving/disposal etc

[GrumbleDook]

We need to think about the scope of GDPR.

 

Whereas:

(15) In order to prevent creating a serious risk of circumvention, the protection of natural persons should be technologically neutral and should not depend on the techniques used. The protection of natural persons should apply to the processing of personal data by automated means, as well as to manual processing, if the personal data are contained or are intended to be contained in a filing system. Files or sets of files, as well as their cover pages, which are not structured according to specific criteria should not fall within the scope of this Regulation.

 

Teacher's notes, where structured and recorded to be part of, or feed into, the learner's educational records (which will include assessment, behaviour, etc.) would be covered under Public Interest as it is part of delivery of the curriculum. You cannot know whether delivery has been effective, needs to continue or needs to be changed without making notes.

 

Where the notes are unstructured (comments in margins, post-it note records of actions, etc.) then this would fall out of the scope of the Regulation *but should not be ignored as there may be impact if lost, shared incorrectly or holds incorrect information*.