FDPR for teachers

1. GDPR
FOR TEACHERS

2. GDPR
• From 25 May 2018 the Data Protection Act (DPA) has been replaced by the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These new EU regulations are
intended to strengthen and unify the safety and security of all data held within an
organisation, including schools and colleges.

3. A DEFINITION OF PERSONAL DATA IS:
•Any data or information that
identifies an individual that if lost
or mislaid could cause harm or
distress.

4. TAKING A REGISTER
• When taking a register you should not display the information to the class.
• If a projector is linked to your computer then make sure that either the screen is
frozen before you take the register or that the projector is turned off. The
danger is not that the learners present in the class know that people are not in
the class but that the display might be seen by others passing by the classroom
or that information that they should not see is disclosed.

5. COURSE FILE /LESSON PLAN FOLDER
• By the very nature these will hold quite a lot of personal data, some of which will
be sensitive in its nature. You are allowed to have these open in the classroom
and can leave them on the teachers’ desk while you are in the staffroom.
• If you leave the room then you should either lock this information away or take
it with you. At night you should always lock away this information or take it
home with you 9if there is no other option). You do not know who will visit your
classroom / staffroom at the end of the day.

6. LEARNERS’ WORK / CLASSROOM DISPLAYS
• Ensure that no personal details are left on any work displayed in class.
• The same room is used by many other learners and , possibly, for meetings.

7. PHOTOS
• Like learners’ work a photo can be seen as being personal data.
• However, like the learners’ work they are not sensitive in nature - the pupils
know who each other are and other will know that they attend the school.
Therefore in areas that are not public there is no real problem in displaying
pictures that contain children.
• If there are pupils for who there are safeguarding issues then the display of
these photos might not be advisable.

8. USING YOUR OWN DEVICES
• There are dangers in using your own devices for accessing learners personal
data or school email.
• These dangers are mainly around other people seeing the data, whether this is
accidental or not, with many computers and tablets at home being shared by
other family members.

9. MIXING PERSONAL AND SCHOOL’S EMAILS
• Beware of using the same ‘email’ account for both private and school emails.
• It is easy to have the contacts from the school alongside those from friends and
family. It is not difficult to see that a slight confusion in names could send an
email that holds personal data could be accidentally to someone who should
not receive that data.

10. CONNECTIONS AND AUTOMATIC CLOUD
STORAGE
• There are also issues with the connections that you might have set on your
tablet or computer.
• It is common these days for tablets to automatically backup photos in cloud
storage. This is fine if it is your data, but the use on a trip could mean that
pictures of learners could be stored against the Data Protection Act.

11. CONSIDER DATA PROTECTION WHEN YOU’RE
COMMUNICATING ONLINE
Emails are now a ubiquitous form of online communication, but they are also
common point for data breaches. In order to make emails more secure:
• Always use your school email account for any work-related communications
• If you’re sending a sensitive document via email, consider password-protecting
the document
• Make sure that the email address you are sending to is a legitimate one,
particularly when replying to an email
• Do not open attachments from unsolicited emails

12. ENSURE THAT YOUR LAPTOPS AND PCS HAVE
ADEQUATE PROTECTION IN PLACE
• As teachers, we often work from home, in the evening, at weekends or during
school holidays which can raise issues surrounding the transport of data and its
storage.
• Always keep personal and work related information separate, keep your
antivirus software up to date.

13. DO NOT RELY ON USB STICKS
• With so many storage devices, from USB sticks and flash memory to portable
hard drives being lost and stolen each year, a number of organisations have
banned staff from using them.
• If you use a mobile storage device, then make sure that the device itself and the
files on them are encrypted. Secure flash drives are available with an encryption
feature built into them for this purpose.