Webinar: Data Protection and Education

Partners Graham Vials (Head of Education), Phil Tompkins (Data Protection) and Rob Eldon (Commercial Dispute Resolution), will explore key data protection considerations for schools and colleges, including:

Subject Access Requests (SARs)

From our work with schools and colleges we have seen how subject access requests have been weaponised. We will explore:

• Issues with access to student data for those with parental responsibility.
• The level of identification needed to ensure the person making the SAR is entitled to the data.
• The use by solicitors of SARs to further claims.
• The exemptions available.
• The issues surrounding the assumption of reasonableness in respect of education related worker data.
• The serious harm test.
• The exemption for child abuse data.

Data breaches and claims

• When to notify the ICO a breach has happened.
• Which breaches can lead to claims and how best to deal with them.
• The level of claims.

Data sharing

We will discuss the need to get data sharing arrangements right and common problems we see. These usually seem to arise from the poor state of the sharing agreements schools and colleges are required to sign up to.

Technology

Following the Chelmer Valley High School case, and considering the increasing use of biometrics and AI, we will look at things to think about when introducing technology into schools.