Dear All,
I may have raised this issue previously on this list but I cannot find a reference. I am interested in understanding the data protection responsiblities for student records when a school closes and becomes a new school or academy.
My understanding is that the school is the data controller and this responsibility is vested in the school governors as the governing body.
Thus, when a school closes permanently, the school governors need to determine, as data controllers, what happens to the personal data that they retain. For pupils that are continuing to a new school, their records will continue with them. In some instances, there will be some records retained by the school.
In that scenario, the school governors would make arranges so that the data could be retrieved if required or needed to be retained. Thus, they would transfer it to someone, like the local authority, so that it would be managed. It could potentially be given to another school, but that is a separate question.
In the other situation, a new school or academy is emerging. My understanding is that even though the new organisation is created, there is a responsibility for the records of the old school out which it is being created unless specifically stated in the arrangements to create the new school or academy. I am thinking of when a new council is created, it has a continuing authority for those records under its control.
Is this correct? Is the new entity not responsible for the personal records? Or, does it depend on what the school governors decided in the old school to do with the records that are retained. Is this a situation, where the issue will depend on what the data controller of the closing school decided? Thus, if the new organisation is a new data controller then it would not have any responsibility for the old material.
Would all of this be covered in the legal agreements creating the new school or agreement?
I would be interested to know how others would approach this from a DPA perspective.
Thanks
Lawrence
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