The new EU laws on data protection and privacy, known as General Data Protection Regulation, come into effect on 25th May 2018.

 

The GDPR aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data. The GDPR also brings a new set of “digital rights” for EU citizens.

According to the European Commission, “personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address.”

This new set of “digital rights” means that all websites that process the personal data of their users must clearly inform those users of what information is being processed.

~ If you already have a school website ~

1. Does your school website store personal data on users outside of the school? Maybe parents can log in to use certain features of your website or to see information specific to them? This is personal identifiable data that requires you to be in compliance with the new GDRP rules.

2. The point above will probably not apply to most schools because school websites in general do not store the user information of anyone outside of the school. However, your website may be using tracking software such as Google Analytics to track user habits. This tracking data can record identifiable user information such as their IP address, and that requires you to be in compliance with the new GDRP rules.

3. If your website has user accounts, allowing staff members to log in and make changes to the site, then you most likely have stored their name, email address, etc. This also requires you to be in compliance with the new GDRP rules.

Your website designer should have already informed you of this. Even if you don’t update your website often or haven’t even thought about your website in a while, any person data stored on any server needs to be in compliance with the new GDRP rules.

You are responsible for compliance with the new GDRP laws, not your website designer.

At the very least, you need to ask some question.

~ If you don’t already have a school website ~

Get in touch with us today and get your new school website up and running in a matter of days.