Presented by

Alison Wellens - Information Commissioner's Office

Brief description

An introduction of the overarching principles and a look at some case studies around Data Protection, focusing on handling personal (student) information, legal requirements and good practice.  IT and access will also be considered.

Slides and materials

When they are available on the AGCAS website, there will be a link to them here.

What I learned - views from people who attended

Was anything in this session too good to keep to yourself? Share your comments and thoughts on the best bits of the session here.

• I think the main learning point I carried away with me is the distinction between personal data - pretty much any data or set of data that can be used to identify an individual - and sensitive data, which relates to certain specific areas like religious belief, etnicity, sexuality, health, and a few others which I can't remember but hope people will add in for me. To collect the latter, you need explicit written consent from the client - it's not enough that the client has given you the information, you also have to produce some form of consent from them.  - Amelia Luzzi

Discuss the session

Interesting ideas? Want to discuss issues raised by this session? Please add your comments and thoughts to this section. Anything goes, so long as it is related to the topic of the session and complies with the wiki's good use policy. You do not need to have attended the session to participate!

• An important issue came up here regarding DLHE (try not to nod off at the back there!). In discussion with Alison Wellens (session leader), it emerged that we may be breaking DP principles, if not rules, by asking for DLHE information from a "third party". The rationale is that the respondent is an adult, and therefore it may not be legitimate to obtain information about them from someone else, without the leaver's explicit permission. Our group made Alison aware of the pressures that we are placed under by HESA to obtain the mythical 80% response rate, and after the session Alison said that she would get in contact with HESA about this. Rishab Baruah
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• I'm wondering if any of us have been involved in training others on Data Protection and on such things as locking computers, setting passwords, not leaving information lying around.  Apparently pure and simple ignorance is the cause of most DP breaches. If you have done that sort of training, on whatever scale, how did you go about it? I always feel a bit of a jobsworth when I raise DP issues! - Amelia Luzzi
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