Accessing Student Emails

[zag]

I'm always accessing students email on disciplinary grounds.

 

We have it clearly stated in the AUP document they sign that this will happen.

 

There is really nothing more too it than that.

[DPrince]

There is really nothing more too it than that.

 

Unless you're breaking the law by abusing their human rights??

 

The holding reply from the lawyers was that we SHOULDN'T do this, because we are not considering their Human Right to privacy. Apparently, they are of the opinion that our AUP doesn't override this, whatever it says. We can use RIPA to intercept email for certain tasks, but we can't access someone's account or pass any data on to third parties without the student's express and specific consent.

 

The disclaimer that accompanies this is that it is just a holding reply - the person who normally deals with that sort of question is apparently unavailable. My suspicion is they're playing safe so we don't get caught with our pants down in the interim, but it does kinda match advice I'd received previously (albeit a few years ago at a legal seminar).

[GrumbleDook]

@DPrince

ask the laywers about whether safety of the child under the Children's Act overrides Human Rights requirements as the Articles are all based around the rights to do things but not in detriment to existing laws. If the laws are wrong then they get challenged and changed. Ask the lawyers if human rights are infringed by searching a pupil or their property (eg bags)?

 

The crux of this is consent, closely followed by justifiable actions.

[glennda]

It is always a subject which is going to be discussed alot - mostly becuase as you say the law can be very vague. I see it that as long as they have signed the AUP which gives us express permission to enter and search students mailboxes for misuse of the system or for Child Protection reasons i.e two students organising to beat another student up over email. The way i see it is we will only enter and search a students mailbox on the written instruction of a Member of SLT or the Pastrol Team who the Head Teacher has given express permission to give these orders.

 

In a Similar way to the Police getting a search warrant and entering your house to search for possible illegal activities - they don't need your permission to enter as they have a warrant from a Judge. I'm sure this can't be breaking Human Rights laws in regards to privacy (what the police do that is).

 

At the end of the day safeguarding children is of paramount importance so these things need to be done.

[X-13]

I'm interested in what they lawyers say as I've just been given a copy of our AUP to sign and it has something about accessing staff e-mails in a couple of vague [in my opinion] circumstances.

 

"[if permission is given] by the users themselves using outlook"

"on recipt of a request form signed by the Headteacher/chair of governors" ]

 

The first one is fine. The second sounds like the same sort of thing as what's going on here.

 

It also then says that "acess to other users' mailboxes risks breaching the data protection act and the users right to privacy; therefore a detailed log of how and when such access is granted is kept."

[jimmy_2k]

In a previous job we used to have a access to data form which was part of our AUP. If someone wants access to another persons data, be it because they are off sick or an investigation. They will fill out a form stating the nature of the request, this has to be signed by a member of Senior management (who then takes responsibility not you) for this and then you sign as the facilitator. This is a point I have made to my school, the head is ultimatley responsible for data security, they delegate that to IT Administrators, but the administrator is only there to act for them and they take responsibility as they have asked for it to be done and a log is kept. Its the same for unblocking websites, SLT are there to lead, let them do just that.

[AyatollahPies]

So, you're suggesting if teacher X is assumed to be having a relationship with pupil Y and they've been communicating over e-mails... that the school should simply wait for permission from either pupil Y or teacher X to go ahead and check e-mails?

 

If they don't consent, what then? Wait for the police?

 

EDIT:

 

You mention 'breaking in', as I see it the school has rented the pupil an e-mail account to use based on a set of terms. It's not breaking in as such, it's checking up that was agreed to prior to the account being setup.

 

If you have a landlord and they've got a clause that states 'If we think you're doing something naughty, we can enter without warning' and it's signed.... they can pretty much do that.

 

No they can't. They can put as many clauses in as they want, but they are not legally enforceable.

 

(They do though, the sneaky *****!)