In the latest episode in our reboot of the TeachNet Podcast series, Dr. Michael Hallissy is joined by Cyril Drury, Data Protection Advisor at The Joint Managerial Body (JMB), to talk about the ever-increasing amount of data that schools process and how schools can ensure this data is used ethically.
With a new Digital Strategy recently released, the Digital Education Action Plan (DEAP) at EU level and much talk around emerging technologies from AI to VR and AR, there’s a lot to look forward for educators in the digital learning space. However, in the light of these developments it is more important than ever for schools to be cognisant of the risks and responsibilities associated with increased use of digital tools and platforms and ensure their data protection policy is robust and regularly updated to reflect same.
Cyril stresses the importance of risk assessment before embarking on using any new tool in the classroom but also the importance of having perspective and getting the balance right as there’s risk associated with all in-school activities. The discussion moves on to the providers and their responsibilities under GDPR and how their focus should be more on developing tools that have ‘Privacy by design’ at their core preferably but if not have ‘Privacy by default’ enabled out-of-the-box. In addition, schools should have data processing agreement in place with any outside provider that processes personal data and specifically, where this data is being stored (Particularly if stored outside of the EU), is it being shared with a 3rd party and what protocols are in place to protect this data.
Further Information in this area is available from the relevant primary and post-primary management bodies, on the Data Protection Commission’s website at dataprotection.ie and the GDPR for Schools website at gdpr4schools.ie