Schools and the oversharing of personal data

-

The privacy act of 1988 prevents the sharing of personal data with a 3rd party without consent. Since then in the wake of the recent cyber incidents in well known Australian industries particularly telecommunications and health these laws have been tightened. Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is not to be shared with any 3rd party.

Currently schools throughout Australia are required to complete privacy impact assessments when enroling students to a new online platform yet many schools are still publishing student full names, birthdays and the class students are in at school in newsletters and on social media. So why do some schools still share the full name of students and teachers in newsletters. In the research for this article there were schools found to still be publishing: 

  • images of children with their full name
  • full names of students
  • example of sharing student full name including middle names
  • classes of students with their full name
  • student names and their class or year
  • posts about student birthdays being this week, one published the date with their full name.
To protect the identity of these schools they will not be named and shamed. Schools may defend this practice by saying parents sign a waiver, but many waivers are are frequently not explained and often designed for marketing material and do not allow parents to specify the data they would like withheld or published.

Parents should be able to indicate if they would like students picture without a name or first name only. It is in the interests of the children that schools publish images without names and first name only or initials only. Under no circumstances is there a need for student middle names or birthdates to be published in a public space.

Schools should be considerate of how they publish information pertaining to students. We should also consider should social media and old news letters be archived at the conclusion of each year to further protect students.

This goes further to the protection of personal data for teachers and parents. Should schools be publishing full names of teachers and parents in newsletters and on their social media? Do parents and students sign a waiver for this practice?

The current practice of schools means students could have an extensive digital footprint created by the school by the time they leave school. Search for your children to find the extent of their digital footprint and how your child's school has contributed to this footprint.

What is Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

References

https://www.schoolgovernance.net.au/news/2017/10/12/information-sharing-and-schools-part-1-balancing-privacy-obligations-how-schools-can-ensure-that-sharing-is-caring

https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/small-business-cyber-security/securing-customer-personal-data 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Literacy and online testing part 2

-
Image
This post considers the digital literacy skills required by year 5 students to complete the Numeracy NAPLAN test. Skills for year 5 numeracy navigate numbers to enter their 8 digit ID number enter numbers or text into an answer box click and drag pictures, objects and lines use a trackpad (if you don't have touch screen computers) or mouse turn the timer on and off use the play button to narrate the question show and hide the narration tool mute the narration tool adjust the volume of the narration tool show and hide the ruler use the ruler to perform measurements tilt the ruler identify radio buttons for a single choice identify check boxes for multiple choices use a drop down box and select a response be able to deselect an incorrect choice answer questions with a table or matrix of multiple answers use a zoom tool and turn it off understand the difference between highlight and a selection understand a selected answer is indicated by a double line around a section of screen be ab
Read more

Digital Literacy and online testing - part 3

-
Image
This post considers the online NAPLAN writing test using the public demonstration test . In this example the year 5, 7 and 9 writing tests for the narrative and the persuasive are the same question for all years. The main consideration for student success for an online writing test is their typing speed. Regardless of year level students must be able to type as fast as they can write. As they get older their typing speed must increase with writing speed. This means students should be taught to type from lower primary to ensure they have an acceptable typing speed and technique. Word processing skills are mentioned in the English curriculum documents across the country from years 1 to 4. Familiarity with using punctuation is also crucial for the writing test. Students must be able to locate and use: touch typing at the speed they can write - or faster capital letters full stop (which can be activated by pressing space twice) get to a new line using the enter or return key exclamation ma
Read more

Digital Literacy and Online Testing

-
Image
This post considers how to improve performance in NAPLAN ( National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) by ensuring your students have the digital literacy skills to sit an online test. This post considers the year 3 reading test.  In year 3 the writing test is still paper based and the rest are online. From year 5 all tests are online including the writing test that is now typed. This introduces a standardised test that is inadvertently testing digital literacy and the question is...is your school teaching the skills your students need to answer the questions and have a fair go? For the year 3 reading test students need the following skills: navigate numbers to enter their 8 digit ID number enter numbers or text into an answer box click and drag pictures, objects and lines use a trackpad (if you don't have touch screen computers) or mouse turn the timer on and off identify radio buttons for a single choice identify check boxes for multiple choices be able to deselect an in
Read more

Digital Skills for Online Testing: Part 4

-
Image
This post is investigates the digital skills required for the Conventions of Language NAPLAN test. After review the Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 NAPLAN tests the skills seem similar for each test. Computer skills required include: keyboard skills trackpad or mouse skills selecting objects symbols used to indicate a selection click and drag use of highlight Symbols on the full screen understanding of symbols on the screen next and back buttons flag tool play button dictation tool volume tool magnifying glass hide and show the timer reading a count down timer understanding of the function of types of questions and tools drop down boxes radio buttons click and drag check boxes typed answers in a box use of highlight in questions Drop down list Click and drag question To complete Conventions of Language test students should be familiar with the tools and question types used in the test. At the conclusion of the test students should understand the meaning of the branching screen. Students who are not
Read more

National Simultaneous Storytime 2024

-
Image
  This years NSS 2024 is using the book Bowerbird Blues by Aura Parker. What a lovely way to link a native Australian bird with some interesting habits and mating rituals with literacy and technology. Technology Links - Data Representation Satin Bowerbirds collect blue objects. This is a lesson that links to the book and allows you to teach about data representation and address digital technology content and link to any literacy activities you have planned for NSS 2024.  Data Representation Collect a range of blue items and sort them according a particular characteristic - colour, shape, size or material. Arrange the objects into a presentation, tally them and photograph or draw them. The lesson provides templates for students to count, draw and explain their representations. It also includes an assessment activity that can be marked and then added to a student portfolio. The lesson is available  Teachers Pay Teachers $4 US (about $6 AUD) Australian Teachers Marketplace - $5 AUD che
Read more

Using picture books to teach computational thinking

-
Image
Popular culture may lead you to believe we need to teach all students to code. Actually... we need to teach all students how to use computational thinking. Coding is just one application of computational thinking. Other applications include robotics and digital technologies. There are four components of computational thinking ( BBC website ) decomposition   - breaking down a complex problem or system into smaller, more manageable parts pattern recognition   – looking for similarities among and within problems abstraction   – focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant detail algorithms   - developing a step-by-step solution to the problem, or the rules to follow to solve the problem Based on the definition above you do not always need technology to teach computational thinking. It is possible to teach computational thinking offline and using picture books is just one way. Teaching with picture books is one way for teachers with limited technology
Read more

Literacy and Digital Technology

-
Image
What does Possum Magic by Mem Fox have to do with computational thinking and digital technologies? Possum Magic by Mem Fox is a story about a magic grandma that makes her grandson Hush become invisible. To solve the problem they travel Australia looking for ways to make Hush visible again. Luckily the problem is solved for Hush as he consumes classically Australian foods. Strangely they need to travel to most of the capital cities to do it.  Getting children to visualise a journey and translate what they hear into a concrete experience requires computational thinking. 3 activities to integrate digital technologies in a literacy lesson. K-2 Beebot Activity Create algorithms to follow the trail of the food that Hush eats. Educational content Algorithms Procedural texts Recounts Integrating digital systems Recounts Resources Beebots or bluebots Clear mat  or cardboard ruled up with 15min grid. Pictures  of the foods consumed by Hush Activity
Read more

Hopper DownUnder and thoughts on Girls and Technology

-
Image
The first #HopperDownUnder conference saw 700 women in technology descend on Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Centre July 29-31. This event was an amazing experience and highly recommended for your professional learning plans each year. The workshop I facilitated was on the topic of " Engaging Girls in Technology " it included a presentation , a brainstorming session on Barriers, Solutions and Project ideas and a hands on activity on " Using paper circuits to prototype for etextiles ". The purpose of the workshop was to explore with a group of people what are the Barriers to Girls participating in Technology, Possible Solutions to this problem and suggested projects that could be implemented in schools. The discussion was facilitated using a Padlet , which is an online brainstorming tool. The second part of the workshop was facilitated by Helen Kardiasmenos  she presented some ideas on integrating technology with primary girls links to literacy and an
Read more

Tools to keep kids learning STEM concepts and skills at home

-
Image
To enable students to continue working at you you may need to teach them how to log into online tools at school before schools are shut down. For offline tasks you will need to prepare resources and send them home in a pack, eg: construction may require specialist materials, coloured paper, paper clips, etc. Pack up and send home.  It will be difficult to teach new content in this time as now all students will complete the tasks unsupervised. It is a very difficult time. Online Tools e-Safety Commisioner  https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators/classroom-resources Online tools and videos that could be used as stimulus for a question and answer or "design a campaign" to educate kids about online dangers https://aca.edu.au/resources/ Teacher will need to sign up (for free) with their school account and upload student names and distribute user names and passwords. I would be ideal if you do this before the school closes so students know how to use it. Her
Read more