Assuming here that the school's confidentially held sickness records will
cover any necessary detail and that the notice board is for general
information & resource management purposes only, it is sufficient to have a
list - "Absences on 19/09/01" followed by name/s. Even general descriptions
such as "Ill", "Training Course" might be considered excessive, but would be
better than unnecessary detail of the specific circumstances, which are not
everyone's business. The board should be out of sight of casual passers-by -
pupils, contractors, caretaker etc. who do not have a need to know.
Alternatively, perhaps staff would be happy to consent to their health
details being put on the board whenever they ring in sick?
NB List subscribers interested in the uses of medical data -and who are
members of the UK Data Protection Forum - may find the minutes of the last
meeting of interest, when they are published, as one of the guest speakers
made a presentation on this very subject. (Apologies to the list moderator
for the shameless plug).
Su Goulding
Data Protection Analyst
tel: 020 7330 3491
mobile: 07767 674376
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Trent,Tim [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 11:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Medical Data, sub issue
At the local school where my wife works, there is a blackboard (no
surprises there,though I suspect we must now cal lit a "chalk board") in the
staff room.
Every time a staff member is ill, there is a note on the board: "Jean
Smithers cannot come to work today, she has a migraine"
My take on this is that such a message is against the act. It is the
display of private information in a public forum in a manner capable of
identifying the data subject, and containing serious personal data.
The school happens to be a local authority administered school, but this is
no different from it being private sector.
Do any of you, especially those with control of schools where this may be
commonplace, have any comments?
_____________________________________________________________
Tim Trent
Chief Privacy Officer EMEA
Gartner
EMEA Marketing, Tamesis, The Glanty, Egham, Surrey, United Kingdom,
TW20 9AW
Switchboard +44 (0)1784 431 611, Direct Line +44 (0)1784 267 335, Mobile
+44 (0)7710 126 618
Visit our home on the web: http://www.gartner.com <http://www.gartner.com>
The opinions expressed in this message are my own, and may or may not
reflect those of my employer. They are expressed as a part of the
discussion on the JISCMail mailing list on data protection and for no
other purpose. They have no legal standing and are offered as part of
informed and informal discussion. They may NOT be attributed to
Gartner in any way.
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