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Data Protection -Is Your Responsibility.
All childcare services have rights and responsibilities in relation to accessing and keeping personal data of staff, parents and children using the service. These obligations are set out in the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003.
As a childcare service you will be collecting data relating to families, children and employees. This makes you a data controller. Those that you gather data about are called data subjects. There are rights and obligations for data controllers that you must follow. Equally data subjects have individual rights to understand the purpose of and consent to the collection and retention of their personal information.
Examples where personal data is collected:
- Under CCCS scheme – the parents PPS number.
- Under ECCE scheme – the child's PPS number.
- Employee Garda vetting forms
- Using CCTV cameras.
- Staff using mobile phones in the service.
- Employee references.
- Child enrolment forms – child details.
- Staff qualifications.
- Photographs of children or staff
All childcare services collect information similar to the above, therefore you have a responsibility to understand the rules around protecting this data. This section is relevant to everyone.
Data protection legislation outlines 8 rules which should govern how you manage the collection, storage and disposal of information. Here are the 8 rules:
You must ....
1. Obtain and process the information fairly
2. Keep it only for one or more specified and lawful purposes
3. Process it only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given to you initially
4. Keep it safe and secure
5. Keep it accurate and up-to-date
6. Ensure that it is adequate, relevant and not excessive
7. Retain it no longer than is necessary for the specified purpose or purposes
8. Give a copy of his/her personal data to any individual, on request.
Data Protection Policies
You should develop an overall Data Protection Policy. This will outline what information you collect and for what purpose, who has access to it, how is it stored/recorded, how and when it is disposed of. All staff and families should be made aware of this policy.
You should then have individual policies on more specific areas where personal information is recorded or collected, for example if your service uses CCTV cameras, you should have a very specific policy around this.
Please click here for more detailed information about what should be included in these policies.
Data Protection Policy
CCTV policy
Mobile phone Use
Web/Internet use
Cavan CCC would like to acknowledge Canavan & Byrne for their contribution of useful information and policy documents cited on the data protection section of this website.
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