St. Cuthbert's Catholic Primary School

UK GDPR

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) ensures a balance between an individual’s rights to privacy and the lawful processing of personal data undertaken by organisations in the course of their business. It aims to protect the rights of individuals about whom data is obtained, stored, processed or supplied and requires that organisations take appropriate security measures against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction of personal data.

The School will protect and maintain a balance between data protection rights in accordance with the UK GDPR. This policy sets out how we handle the personal data of our pupils, parents, suppliers, employees, workers and other third parties.

What does UK GDPR mean for schools?

A great deal of the processing of personal data undertaken by schools will fall under a specific legal basis, ‘in the public interest’. As it is in the public interest to operate schools successfully, it will mean that specific consent will not be needed in the majority of cases in schools.

UK GDPR will ensure data is protected and will give individuals more control over their data; however this means schools will have greater accountability for the data:

• Under UK GDPR, consent must be explicitly given to anything that isn’t within the normal business of the school, especially if it involves a third party managing the data. Parents (or the pupil themselves depending on their age) must express consent for their child’s data to be used outside of the normal business of the school.

• Schools must appoint a Data Protection Officer and be able to prove that they are UK GDPR compliant.

• Schools must ensure that their third party suppliers who may process any of their data is UK GDPR compliant and must have legally binding contracts with any company that processes any personal data. These contracts must cover what data is being processed, who it is being processed by, who has access to it and how it is protected.

• It will be compulsory that all data breaches which are likely to have a detrimental effect on the data subject are reported to the ICO within 72 hours.