Under UK GDPR, Public Authorities or Bodies, as well as businesses carrying out certain processes are required to appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO). This article will explain why you need a DPO and what a DPO does for your organisation.

At Data Protection Education, we have an ongoing project to assess potential organisations that our schools are either currently contracted with to supply a product or service, or may in the future be in contract with.

For most organisations, a lot of thought and care goes into ensuring that when you’re collecting data, you are complying with the relevant data protection legislation- that it’s being collected with consent where required, that you have a lawful basis etc. However,

Schools in Brighton and Hove have received the following Freedom of Information request:

1. Please send me copies/scans/digital files that record individual racist/religious incidents/bullying incidents in terms of numbers of incidents and their

These protocols aim to ensure that online lessons with pupils when working from home, are safe, secure and continue to provide high-quality education using a virtual platform. 

This is guidance for setting up and managing online lessons using the school’s chosen platform ie  Zoom; Google or Microsoft teams.

Users of Class Dojo will recently have noticed that a requirement to provide consent for international data transfers was included to the login screen.

It is a requirement under the Freedom of Information Act and ICO to set out your commitment to making certain classes of information routinely available, such as policies and procedures, minutes of meetings, annual reports and financial information.

Transparency is about being clear, open and honest with your users about what they can expect from you.

Research projects have quite a bit of leeway in GDPR - and whereas GDPR tightened a lot of things up from the old data protection directive, it actually frees up a lot relating to research.

We've recently had more than one breach reported where physical files have got lost in the post.

In such cases, the sender remains the data controller and is responsible for ensuring that the optimum data security measures are in place during transfer. Where possible, consider whether a physical drop-off (and get a receipt) is a more secure option.

Do I need consent for emergency contacts?

Actually no, and here's why.

We know that we must have a lawful basis for processing any data, and consent is one of the six lawful bases that can be used.

Adapted from: The Irish Data Protection Commissioner

The UK GDPR does not prescribe the exact process for carrying out a DPIA beyond the minimum features outlined above, allowing for flexibility and scalability in line with your organisation’s needs. Although there is no one prescribed approach to take, the following steps can guide you through the process: