Use of student names in school emails

[LAddinall]

We have recently been told not to use students names in emails but to refer to them by initials and dob. despite the inconvenience of having to look up dates of birth I am also concerned that staff at the receiving end will not have time to decipher and the information wrongly assign the information to another student with the same initials.

Are other schools doing this. We use gmail

 

Louise

[atcoates]

Is that something that all schools in your LA have been told?

[LAddinall]

No. just us. we are part of a multi academy trust.

[FN-GM]

Seems a little strange to include a DOB instead of a name. To me that is more sensitive as it is commonly used for security questions.

[localzuk]

Very odd to use DOB, that's for sure - it tells the receiver the person's accurate age!

 

We don't currently issue email accounts, but will soon - and they will be first name, initial and 3 random digits. So PaulG765 or TonyA192 etc...

[atcoates]

Seems a little strange to include a DOB instead of a name. To me that is more sensitive as it is commonly used for security questions.

Yes that was my thinking as well. Another example of each school \ trust interpreting the new guidance in their own way.

[3s-gtech]

Initial and year/set is far more common, and often what we do eg JB, 8D.

[RTi78]

Initials and form here

[jdoyle]

Schools collect Date of Birth as a Legal Obligation and have a number of obligations re sharing this data. They are not given the authority to use the DOB in this way.

[jmak]

Might be wrong, but my interpretation of the OP's question is the identifier of the child in the email content, not the format of the email address.

 

On that basis, I'd say the suggested approach is unnecessary - and unhelpful. As long as the confidentiality of the email system is as it should be for a school, there's no reason not to use it to communicate personal information.

[djm968]

Correct me if I'm wrong I think the OP is referring to use of the student names in email messages and not the use of names in student email addresses. This seems to me to be complete nonsense, and the Trusts incorrect interpretation of GDPR! Edited July 11, 2018 by djm968

[mtillbrook]

I would have said that using the DoB is a MUCH greater risk than using a name. IE - it's much less common for more than one student to have the same DoB than the same name - depending on where you are in the country particularly.

The other issue with that is that there is a very good chance that you are not allowed to share DoB information - therefore not allowed to use this as an email address!

 

The general concept of Personal Identifiable Information (PiD) is that it is information that would allow someone to actually identify a specific individual. The name alone is not PiD whereas initials and DoB could well be considered as being PiD.

Be Careful

[localzuk]

Oh! If that is about including names in email messages, then that is absurd. You'd still have to deal with Subject Access Requests for those people, but you're just making it harder to actually do the job.

[sparkeh]

Sounds like another misinterpretation of GDPR and just plain nonsense.

[Farloch]

I think if you start applying a code to a childs name rather than using their name you significantly increase the chances of the recipients attributing the information in the message to the wrong child. You'd have to be really sure everyone was "singing from the same hymn sheet" and even then the potential for human introduced errors is limitless.

[jdoyle]

Might be wrong, but my interpretation of the OP's question is the identifier of the child in the email content, not the format of the email address.

 

On that basis, I'd say the suggested approach is unnecessary - and unhelpful. As long as the confidentiality of the email system is as it should be for a school, there's no reason not to use it to communicate personal information.

 

doesn't matter whether the DOB is used in the email address or in the content of the email.

 

It is not collected by the school for this purpose and this would be flouting the basic principles that underpins GDPR/DPA. Schools/organisations cannot collect data and then suddenly decide to use it in a totally different way.

 

GDPR makes it clear that "Personal data shall be: collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes"

[ewanc1234]

We are told to use their initials and tutor group.

[localzuk]

doesn't matter whether the DOB is used in the email address or in the content of the email.

 

Not sure you are correct at all. The explicit purpose is "running a school", and the legal basis is "public task". You appear to be trying to say the law is so prescriptive that you would say "can be used in this text field here, for census purposes and for putting kids in year groups, but nothing more", which is not at all right.

[jthompson]

If we're talking about not using full names in email addresses, and instead using something like initials and admission number (e.g. [email protected]), where do we stand on the display name associated with that account? It would be a hard sell to get a school working smoothly/correctly when display names aren't proper names.

[leegcvcc]

I think that this type of policy is suited to information regarding a student or staff member sent out externally. There are much less cases where this is prudent and can be used in cases such as child protection, safeguarding, with various agencies etc. They will usually be corresponding about a select number of people who are all connected to the topic, so the people reading these emails know 'who is who' quickly and easily and satisfies some data security no doubt, even if there systems are not GDPR compliant :-)

 

Doing this is a work environment would be a nightmare for all and is totally unnecessary in most cases, but there will be a few, and we do it here in some cases, but they are far from the norm and specialist cases.

[fiendishlyclever]

And some members of staff will still have to use names on external emails. Imagine telling a social worker about JD in 7A. If they aren't in the office (d they often aren't) they might not have time to look up a DOB etc. Perhaps we could include codenames for discussion with parents so you don't have to use the student's name 'Petal has worked very hard this week blah blah'

 

We should collate a top ten of the daftest GDPR interpretations (although this probably wouldn't make the top ten...)[emoji3]

 

(It does highlight how email has been left behind with things like encryption as technology has moved on)

[leegcvcc]

I think we should code the parent's names too and be done with it

[atcoates]

I think everyone just needs clear simple guidance from the DFE or ICO or whoever. The amount of time schools are spending on this is just ridiculous.

[jmak]

doesn't matter whether the DOB is used in the email address or in the content of the email.

 

It is not collected by the school for this purpose and this would be flouting the basic principles that underpins GDPR/DPA. Schools/organisations cannot collect data and then suddenly decide to use it in a totally different way.

 

GDPR makes it clear that "Personal data shall be: collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes"

My point was the request is to use initials and DOB instead of name in an email.

 

There's no reason not to use the name - and as it's not actually necessary, it probably wouldn't be an appropriate use of the DOB.

 

Any personal data should only be used for reasons that are appropriate (necessary). Sometimes it would be justifiable to include DOB in the content - there's nothing that is a blanket prohibition.

[ataylor]

We use their username as their email address

 

Year 7 Joe Bloggs would be :-

[email protected]