Moving MIS and data retention requirements

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

We have a couple of schools moving MIS and a question has been raised about keeping old records. The new MIS will only migrate some of the data held in the old MIS and the school's data retention policy says it will keep data for 3 years after a student leaver or longer if they were SEN/LAC/had child protection issues/etc. As the new MIS won't migrate things like historical behavior incidents, detentions, SEN reviews, and other logged events. The schools are asking if, for example a parent gives them an updated address for a pupil will they have to update that in both the new and old MISs until the student's data falls outside their data retention policy or do they need to spend time going through their old MIS and deleting all transferred data like addresses, phone numbers, etc. from the old MIS once the move has occurred?

Has anyone seen any guidance anywhere around this topic, a reasonable Google has brought up some vaguely useful bits but nothing comprehensive and most of what I could find was just for a specific school or MAT.

[mavhc]

Surely it's just an archive at that point and doesn't need updating. What's the reason they're thinking they need to update or delete things from the old system?

[elsiegee40]

Deletion may be necessary due to request of the subject or because the school does not have good reason to retain all data indefinitely.

[Ditto]

The ICO do offer some guidance on this, but other European authorities, such as the French CNIL seem to often be quoted with a different interpretations of what constitutes meeting the requirements of GDPR. What's the ICO advise is that your policies need to clear and followed. It's worth having a look at

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/#ib5 and

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/#ib6

 

So for the case of keeping records for SEN/LAC/Safeguarding etc., it may be the case that you can argue that a deletion request can be declined due to other legal obligations. However, as pointed out in the previous post, you can not hold on to date without good processing justification for an excessive time period.

[mavhc]

So need to keep backups, don't have to delete parts of them, but don't keep them forever.

 

Question is when you have a 5 year old and an 18 year old's information on your backup, and you have to keep the 5 year old's data until they're 25

[Ditto]

Yep! I've seen lots of discussion around this and the conclusion is that you (your school) needs to decide and document their justification for their decision. Not great, but as so is often the case with trying to be compliant with laws, there are no hard and fast rules.

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

Thank you for all the comments.

The school's interpretation is that they need to keep records until they fall outside their data retention period at which point they need deleting. Therefore on a termly basis they will need to enter the old system and delete all records that are no-longer needed and they can't just delete the old system as there are records that need keeping that aren't in the new MIS.

What they are querying is when they receive an update to information that is held on both the old and current MIS (assuming they don't take the time to remove all duplicate information from the old MIS once conversion has happened), then do they have to update the information in the old MIS even though it is only an archive. From reading the various posts above my conclusion so far is that as long as the school states in it's data retention policy that archive systems won't be updated then they don't need to update the old MIS.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun

[mavhc]

Given the whole point of GDPR is to avoid massive databases with lots of access where mass data can easily be lost, one could argue that an archive of an old system that's not even running unless required and can only be accessed inside the school by 2 people, is fine.

[Ditto]

TFrom reading the various posts above my conclusion so far is that as long as the school states in it's data retention policy that archive systems won't be updated then they don't need to update the old MIS.

I concur with this conclusion.

[EduTechSLT]

I have to say, we went old school and printed SEN, Behaviour and Safeguarding logs and popped them into the children’s files. Didn’t really want a 500mb MIS backup floating around.