Welcome back to the start of the new academic year! We hope that you managed to find some time over the summer to disconnect and refresh.
The main update this month is regarding our new processes for working with you in the ‘new normal’. There is also an announcement about a selection of our new services that are coming online, an update on the online training platform, and the latest on our data protection resources on the portal.
If you have any further questions about the topics below, or if you would like to book your next visit from us, either online using video conferencing or onsite once schools are accepting visitors, please get in touch via GDPR@schoolpro.uk.
Stay safe and healthy!
New Year, New Normal, New Processes
You will have already received an email from one of us about our new processes for this year outlining how we plan to work with you through the “new normal”. The key points from that email were that:
- we will conduct as much of the work as possible remotely to reduce the number of visitors to your site. We will be contacting you this term to arrange an online meeting to progress your data protection work; this is likely to focus on DPIA production for online learning and any changes made during lockdown or planned in the event of a future lockdown;
- we will encourage you to use the online training and tools rather than face-to-face sessions. If your school is due refresher training, we will be monitoring access to the training and will support, advise and encourage as necessary;
- we will be contacting you by phone very soon to check staffing and ensure our records are up to date;
- where you request a site visit or we feel it necessary, we will follow the steps outlined in our Risk Assessment. A copy of this is found here.
We would also like to ask that you speak to your IT Support function and request that our domain – schoolpro.uk – is added to your ‘whitelist’ if it isn’t already. We have been made aware that some of the communications that come out from us, either directly or through the new website, are being blocked by some school filtering systems. By adding us to the system’s ‘whitelist’, you can be sure that you are picking up what we’re putting down.
New Services
We are in the process of activating a range of new services which we intend to offer to our current schools with additional savings or, potentially, free of charge.
- Free statutory information website review
The first of these is a free website review. We will already be reviewing parts of your website to see if addenda to privacy notices have been added and for compliance checks as your DPO. Whilst doing this for our existing schools, we will offer to carry out a full website review free of charge to ensure it contains all required statutory information followed by a report detailing our findings. We have capacity to offer this to about fifty schools at this stage, so do contact us quickly if this is of interest. - Bulk storage solutions
Secondly, we also have the solution to any additional storage needs you may have as a result of the current new normal. Please contact us if you are in need of additional storage and we will be able to help you. - Confidential waste
Thirdly, we now have the ability to offer a cost-effective and bespoke confidential waste storage and disposal solution to you. Contact us to discuss further and arrange a quote.
Online Training Update
It has been a really busy summer on our training platform and it has been great to see so many staff completing their GDPR training and getting their certificates. We would also like to thank those of you that have helped us to identify and remove any little gremlins from the system which we now believe have been fully dealt with. Thank you for your patience with this!
We are still expecting further role-specific courses to go live over the next few weeks and these will focus on the administrative functions within school. We will continue to update you regularly when new courses go live on the platform. However, if you do have any questions regarding the training, please contact us at training@schoolpro.uk.
We mentioned this last month but just to remind you, please don’t forget to add to your training platform, any new members of staff that will be starting with you in September as they will then be able complete their specific course as part of their induction.
Data Protection in the News
Spoofing emails: The trickery costing businesses billions (from 2019) – BBC
Facebook admits to wrongly sharing user data with third party apps yet again – techradar
133m records for sale as fruits of data breach spree keep raining down – naked security
How Have I Been Pwned became the keeper of the internet’s biggest data breaches – TechCrunch
Second NHS data leak prompts call for ‘robust’ measures to be demonstrated – The Orcadian
Dutch DPA issues record fine for violating GDPR data subject rights – Engage
Google faces privacy lawsuit over tracking users in apps without consent – androidcentral
Twitter’s massive hack could be even worse than it seems – CNN
EU-US Privacy Shield for data struck down by court – BBC
Factbox: Reaction after EU court strikes down transatlantic data transfer deal – Reuters
Coronavirus: England’s test and trace programme ‘breaks GDPR data law’ – BBC
More than 20 million VPN users warned of massive data breach – 9News
What US companies should consider following the bombshell EU Privacy Shield ruling – Fortune
Seven ‘no log’ VPN providers accused of leaking – yup, you guessed it – 1.2TB of user logs onto the internet – The Register
Lock down your data – or get the cheque book out: ICO privacy violation fines are rising, say lawyers – The Register
University of York hit by serious data breach as personal details of staff, students and supporters stolen – YorkMix
Fintech unicorn suffers massive data breach, millions of records published online – ITProPortal
List of Blackbaud breach victims tops 120 – ComputerWeekly
Strava users are calling out the app’s “creepy” privacy settings – Cosmopolitan
Covid-19 threatens to set UK data protection back a generation – City A.M.
MPs criticise privacy watchdog over NHS test-and-trace data – The Guardian
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