Support better data practice in educational settings today

If you support better protection of learners, in particular children, in the education sector, you can take action in the reform of UK Data Protection law underway right now.

Lord Clement-Jones, Baroness Kidron, Lord Knight and Lord Russell spoke on a wide range of subjects in the Data Use and Access Bill Second Reading debate when peers called for an ICO Code of Practice in Educational Settings, among other changes.

Peers have laid amendments for both a “Code of Practice on Children’s Data and Education” (page 35 of 62), and “Code on Processing Personal Data in Education where it concerns a Child or Pupil”.  The first has more detail, the second has the advantage of including learners aged 18 or over at sixth forms, in Further Education, and children with disabilities or special educational needs in educational settings, up to the age of 25 (see page 33 of 62). These are not necessarily what would be in the law if it changed, but the debate should encourage the government to adopt the change, and get the combined wording just right in the next stage of the Bill.

Take action and lend your support

You can write to a peer or your own MP to lend your support for this change in your own words.  You can write to any of those peers below, who have laid the changes, or even the Minister in the House of Lords leading the Bill for government, Baroness Jones of Whitchurch. Or indeed all of them and the Secretary of State for Education. You might want to say,

  • Your name, area of interest, and if appropriate any position or qualification that underpins your interest in this topic and reasons for support.
  • You call on the government to support the calls from Lord Clement-Jones, Baroness Kidron, Lord Knight and Lord Russell at Second Reading in the Bill, and amendments at Committee Stage starting this week.
  • Why their proposals for better data protection for all data coming into, across and out of education settings, through an ICO Code of Practice are necessary.

For example:

An ICO Code of Practice would not create new law, but would support schools to bring what the law says on paper, into everyday practice. This would give staff confidence to know how to handle data better and consistently across the UK, within existing law, especially where emerging technologies are coming into classrooms with no initial teacher training or continuous professional development on the tools and the law.

An ICO Code of Practice would support the EdTech industry, or commercial third party processing organisations to know where the boundaries are between their own, and their contracting schools or educational settings. It would bring clarity to where the current law overlaps the roles of different stakeholders.

An ICO Code of Practice would underpin better research practice, clarifying what is research and what is product development, where research ethics are expected to be applied and when not, and where educational settings responsibilities rest in a shared research project or activity.

An ICO Code of Practice would better support parents and learners, most of whom are children under 18, to understand their rights and their limitations, improving digital literacy and data understanding across society, good for in school now, but also the future growth of the country, where so much is expected from the digital sector.

You may want to give some examples of practice from your own area of expertise, that underpin the changes needed.

Remember to thank them too.

 

Background

DDM briefing on the Bill, with case studies to download (end of page) https://defenddigitalme.org/2024/11/17/data-use-and-access-bill-our-view-and-call-to-action/ Also relevant, our November 2019 EdTech briefing (download .pdf here).

We believe the education sector needs at least three things to start for all learners through change of policy, with legislative underpinning in an Education and Digital Rights Act— we set these out in manifesto proposals this year

  1. A family opt-in/out of today’s commercial reuses of national pupil records;
  2. Student equality monitoring must be kept only as statistics not as named data at the Department for Education; and
  3. A National Digital Office responsible for quality, standards, and support for schools and families.

Take action today. Write to a peer for this Bill, and even the Secretary of State for Education, and your own MP, and ask them to support the first step towards improvement, and support the call for a Code of Practice on education data in this Bill. Work towards the changes we need in the education sector to keep learners safe and flourish, not be held back by their digital shadow, now and into their adult life.

#MyRecordsMyRights.