E-mail addresses

[Stuart_C]

I have this vague recollection, back in the dim mists of time, about the use of pupils E-mail address and you not being able to work out who it was from the username.

 

Was that just scaremongering? Is it law in any way below a certain age? Did I dream up the whole thing?

 

Cheers.

[GrumbleDook]

There is not a law, but good and safe practice which meets the criteria for good and outstanding under Safeguarding with OFSTED and also hits the targets set out under the Every Child Matters agenda (the basis of the Protection of Children's Act 2004), involves anonymising the details of children wherever their information comes into public consumption. You should take action not to indicate the age, the full name or the sex of any child.

 

It is never a single piece of information which puts a child at risk, but a collection of information. The less that is available the better.

[Stuart_C]

Cheers. Whilst are E-mail address do not indicate age or sex they are based on their names, it is a very long way from firstname.surname though . As some of our staff can't work it out sometimes and half the pupils look at me blankly when I try and explain the syntax first time round I'm not too worried but I just needed to know where I stood.

[GrumbleDook]

Some schools will use the roll / admission number from the MIS, or that with other bits. If they use ID cards at all (for ID, for meals or access control) or library cards, then this can help them get used to it.

 

And yes ... I know that there is the "I am not a number but a free man" argument, but there are many times people will have to get used to being a number, whether it is their NI number or other situations.