Data Protection Policy

General rules in complying with Data Protection law.

Policy points are numbered. The numbering corresponds to explanations of ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ for each point further down the page.

What must I do?

1. MUST: All employees must comply with the requirements of Data Protection Law and Article 8 of the Human Rights Act when processing the  personal data of living individuals
2. MUST: Where personal data is used, we must make sure that the data subjects have access to a complete and current Privacy Notice.
3. MUST: We must formally assess the risk to privacy rights introduced by any new (or change to an existing) system or process which involves the use of personal data
4. MUST: We must process only the minimum amount of personal data necessary to deliver services.
5. MUST: All employees who record opinions or intentions about service users must do so carefully and professionally
6. MUST: We must take reasonable steps to ensure the personal data we hold is accurate, up to date and not misleading.
7. MUST: We must rely on consent as a condition for processing personal data only if there is no relevant legal power or other condition
8. MUST: Consent must be obtained if personal data is to be used for promoting or marketing goods and services.
9. MUST: Consent will expire at the end of each ‘Key Stage’ period unless it is reconfirmed.
10. MUST: We must ensure that the personal data we process is reviewed and destroyed when it is no longer necessary.
11. MUST: If we receive a request from a member of the public or colleagues asking to access their personal data, we must handle it as a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act 2018 or a request for the Education Record under the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005
12. MUST: If we receive a request from anyone asking to access the personal data of someone other than themselves, we must fully consider Data Protection law before disclosing it
13. MUST: When someone contacts us requesting we change the way we are processing their personal data, we must consider their rights under Data Protection law.
14. MUST NOT: You must not access personal data which you have no right to view
15. MUST: You must follow system user guidance or other formal processes which are in place to ensure that only those with a business need to access personal data are able to do so
16. MUST: You must share personal data with external bodies who request it only if there is a current agreement in place to do so or it is approved by the Data Protection Officer (DPO) or Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO)
17. MUST: Where the content of telephone calls, emails, internet activity and video images of employees and the public is recorded, monitored and disclosed this must be done in compliance with the law and the regulator’s Code of Practice.
18. MUST: All employees must be trained to an appropriate level, based on their roles and responsibilities, to be able to handle personal data securely.  This training must be regularly refreshed to ensure knowledge remains current.
19. MUST: When using ‘data matching’ techniques, this must only be done for specific purposes in line with formal codes of practice, informing service users of the details, their legal rights and getting their consent where appropriate.
20. MUST: We must pay an annual Data Protection Fee
21. MUST: Where personal data needs to be anonymised or pseudonymised, for example for research purposes, we must follow the relevant procedure
22. MUST NOT: You must not share any personal data held by us with an individual or organisation based in any country outside of the United Kingdom without seeking advice from the SIRO or Data Protection Officer
23. MUST: We must identify Special Categories of personal data and make sure it is handled with appropriate security and only accessible to authorised persons
24. MUST: When sending Special Category data to an external person or organisation, it should be marked as “OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE” and where possible, sent by a secure method

Why must I do it?

1. To comply with legislation
2. To comply with Data Protection legislation which requires us to make the data subject aware of how we will handle their personal data
3. To ensure that the rights of the Data Subject are protected in any proposed new activity or change to an existing one
4. The law states that we must only process the minimum amount of information needed to carry out our business purpose.  It is not acceptable to hold information on the basis that it might possibly be useful in the future without a view of how it will be used.   Changes in circumstances or failure to keep the information up to date may mean that information that was originally adequate becomes inadequate. 
5. To maintain professional standards and to assist in defending the validity of such comments if the data subject exercises their rights to ask us to amend or delete their personal data if they feel it to be inaccurate.
6. To comply with a principle of Data Protection law
7. To comply with Data Protection law. Where processing does not rely on a legal condition other than consent
8. When using personal data for marketing and promoting services it is unlikely that any lawful condition other than consent would apply.
9. Consent can only be valid for a reasonable period of time.
10. To comply with a principle of Data Protection law.
11. To comply with the right to access personal data
12. To comply with a principle of Data Protection law
13. To comply with the rights of the Data Subject under Data Protection law
14. Personal data must be protected by effective security controls to ensure that only those with approved business need to access the data can do so
15. Personal data must be protected by effective security controls to ensure that only those with approved business need to access the data can do so  
16. To comply with the legal requirements to keep personal secure but also to ensure that where there are legal grounds to share information in a managed way that this is done correctly.
17. The law permits organisations to hold such data in order to measure the quality of services being provided, to record consent etc. In certain circumstances recordings may be accessed e.g. to investigate alleged criminal activity or breaches of Organisation policy etc.
18. To comply with a principle in Data Protection law, regulatory guidance and the Data Protection Officer governance requirements.
19. To comply with the Data Subject’s rights
20. This is a regulatory requirement
21. Where personal data is used for research purposes, the processing of the data can be legitimised by provisions within Data Protection law
22. To comply with the right of the Data Subject to have equivalent legal safeguards in place over their data in another country as they would here. Personal data transferred overseas (including hosted solutions) must be securely handled under the same or substantially similar provisions that exist under the Data Protection Act.
23. To comply with Article 9 of GDPR
24. To comply with Article 9 of GDPR and comply with a principle of Data Protection law requiring that personal data is processed with appropriate security measures

How must I do it?

1. By following the points in this policy
2. By approving and reviewing a compliant privacy notice in line with the Privacy Notice Procedure and making it available to the data subjects
3. By completing and approving a Privacy Impact Assessment, or Data Protection Impact Assessment where the processing is ‘high risk’ to the rights of the data subjects.
4. By ensuring that the means we use to gather personal data (such as forms etc.) only ask for the information that is required in order to deliver the service.
5. By considering that anything committed to record about an individual may be accessible by that individual in the future or challenged over its accuracy.
6. For example, there should be at least an annual check of the currency of data held about service users and whenever contact is re-established with a service user, you should check that the information you hold about them is still correct.
7. By following the points in the Consent Procedure
8. By following the points in the Consent Procedure  
9. By following the points in the Consent Procedure. Parents/ Guardians of pupils in the last year of a key stage should expect a communication to ask them to refresh their consents. If they do not respond ahead of a deadline date then consent should be assumed to be no longer valid.
10. By following the points in the Records Management Policy. We must review personal data regularly and delete information which is no longer required; although we must take account of statutory and recommended minimum retention periods.  Subject to certain conditions, the law allows us to keep indefinitely personal data processed only for historical, statistical or research purposes.  The Retention Schedule will give guidance in these areas.
11. By following the points in the Statutory Requests for Information Policy. We must be aware that data subjects can ask others to make a request on their behalf. There must be evidence of consent provided by the Data Subject to support this.
12. By following the points in the Statutory Requests for Information Policy. Such requests would typically be managed under the Freedom of Information Act (if from a member of the public) or under Data Protection or Justice law if for a criminal investigation, however the decision whether or not to disclose someone’s personal data to a third party must satisfy the requirements of Data Protection law
13. By reviewing the impact of any requested change on any statutory duty being fulfilled by the Organisation.
14. By being aware through training and guidance from your manager on what information is appropriate for you to access to do your job. Systems and other data storage must be designed to protect access to personal data. You must inform your manager if you have access to data which you suspect you are not entitled to view.
15. By ensuring appropriate security controls are in place and rules to support those controls are followed. The following should be in place:

• technical methods, such as encryption, password protection of systems, restricting access to network folders;
• physical measures, such as locking cabinets, keeping equipment like laptops out of sight, ensuring buildings are physically secure; and
• organisational measures, such as:
  • Providing appropriate induction and training so that staff know what is expected of them
  • Taking reasonable steps to ensure the reliability of staff that access personal data, for example, by the use of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
  • Making sure that passwords are kept secure, forced to be changed after an agreed period and are never shared

1. Consult your manager, any procedure guidance or any library of sharing agreements managed by the Organisation. Consult the Data Protection Officer or SIRO in one-off cases of sharing.
2. By ensuring that employees and members of the public are fully aware of what personal data is being recorded about them and why, and it what circumstances that data may be used. Operation of overt surveillance equipment such as CCTV must always be done in line with relevant codes of practice captured in the Surveillance Management Procedure. Any covert surveillance must be done in line with the provisions in the Investigatory Powers Act (2016)
3. By completing compulsory training courses relevant to your role. Records will be kept of induction training and annual refresher training. Training content for each role will be determined by feedback on current training methods and the outcome of investigating security incidents. This will be reviewed frequently.
4. By ensuring an Impact Assessment has been approved for the activity
5. The payment must be made annually to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)  
6. Follow the guidance in the Data Minimisation Procedure
7. Consult the Data Protection Officer over any proposed sharing outside of the UK. If you are a manager who is proposing a change to or implementing a new system which may involve the hosting of personal data in a nation outside the UK, this must be first assessed by a  Privacy Impact Assessment, which must be approved by your SIRO and Data Protection Officer
8. Special Categories of Personal Data are information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual, data concerning health or data concerning an individual’s sex life or sexual orientation. Where this data is held it should be stored securely and in a way that access is restricted only to those internal staff that have a valid need to access it. It should only be shared externally after verifying that the recipient is entitled to access this data and through secure means.
9. Hard-copy packages must be marked as such by writing on the exterior of the package. Emails should contain the wording in the ‘subject’ field before the email title. Refer to the Records of Processing Activity document and the register of Data Flows for clear instruction on how you are expected to handle sending the data securely according to the particular activity you are undertaking

What if I need to do something against this policy?

If you believe you have a valid business reason for an exception to these policy points, having read and understood the reasons why they are in place, please raise a formal request by contacting the Headteacher via the School Office or by email: headteacher@stjosephsprimary.thurrock.sch.uk with the subject line ‘GDPR Policy Exemption’.

If you believe the policy does not meet your business needs, you may raise this with your Information Champion who, if they agree with your suggestion, may propose a policy change.

Document Control

Version:                            6.1

Date approved:         16^th August 2022

Approved by:             Information Governance Lead on behalf of St Joseph’s Primary School Local                                          Governing Committee

Next review:              Annual Review to be completed by 31^st August 2023

References

• Data Protection Act 2018 (including the UK General Data Protection Regulation)
• Article 8, The Human Rights Act 1998
• Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005
• Investigatory Powers Act 2016

Breach Statement

Breaches of Information Policies will be investigated and may result in disciplinary action. Serious breaches of Policy may be considered gross misconduct and result in dismissal without notice, or legal action being taken against you.