How Schools Store and Destroy Confidential Information
Autumn is here and that means it is time to think about pumpkins, bonfires, autumn walks – and of course, it is time for the kids to go back to school after a long summer break. For schools, there are lots of things to do to make sure that they are prepared to welcome back students from the previous year and also welcome in new students, and as well as teaching, schools also need to make sure that they are well prepared to protect the children that are in their care whilst they are at school too.
Schools need to keep a lot of personal data on their files about the children that are there, and some of this data can be quite sensitive. Information relating to the child’s needs, their health and personal information like their home address and their parents’ information all needs to be well protected.
In addition to this, schools also hold information related to the staff that work there too. This could be teaching notes, DBS checks and also information that is personal to each staff member that is needed on their file.
Because schools are not only required to protect staff data but also data related to children too, this needs to be stored safely to prevent a data breach. Ensuring that the data that is stored electronically is secure and protected is essential and paper documents also need to be stored away in a safe place that is not accessible to people who do not have authority to access it is something that all schools should do.
Some data will need to be retained for years, so there needs to be suitable space to store it, as information relating to students who have left the school still needs to be kept for a period of time after.
Once it is time to get rid of it and destroy it, it cannot just go into a normal general waste or recycling bin either. Confidential data, whether it is stored electronically on a hard drive or USB, or in paper form needs to be destroyed by a specialist like this confidential waste disposal Cardiff based company, who will not only destroy it but will provide a certificate of destruction to confirm that it has been destroyed.
