Is Your School Complying With the Notifiable Data Breach Guidelines?
What your school needs to do if it suspects a data breach
Hello!
We've noticed that you are in .
Visit Canon .
Close
From February 2018, amendments to the privacy law will come into effect. The new legislation creates a positive obligation to conduct an assessment where an entity suspects, rather than believes, an eligible data breach has occurred.
The notification obligations, which will require an entity to notify affected individuals and the regulator, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), of any eligible data breach, will not arise where the data breach is only suspected. However, if during the course of an assessment, it becomes clear that there has been an eligible breach, then the entity needs to promptly comply with the notification requirements.
What is an ‘eligible data breach’?
A ‘data breach’ is any unauthorised access or disclosure of personal information your school holds, or where that information is lost and likely to give rise to unauthorised access or disclosure.
An ‘eligible’ data breach arises where a reasonable person would conclude that the breach is likely to result in serious harm to the person that the information relates to.
What does an assessment involve?
The OAIC has released a draft resource to assist relevant entities on their obligation to assess a suspected data breach. The OAIC makes clear that the obligation is not only to assess the relevant circumstances, but to have in place:
practices;
policies; and
The key issue is that entities must take reasonable steps to ensure a “reasonable and expeditious” assessment is completed within 30 days of becoming aware of the suspected breach. As the Privacy Act does not set out how entities should assess a suspected data breach, your school will need to have a team ready and a response plan in place.
The OAIC recommends a risk based approach to the assessment and that the following 3 stage process could be appropriate:
Initiate – decide if an assessment is necessary and who will be responsible for carrying it out. This raises a question of who is on the team and in what role? A range of skills are required.
Investigate – this stage also raises issues about implementing a process.
Evaluate – make a decision based on the outcome of the investigation as to whether the breach is an eligible breach.
The OAIC recommends that the process be fully documented.
A key takeaway from this resource is to have a nominated person responsible for undertaking and reporting on the assessment process. The person will need to be provided with the resources to do this task, within the timeframe, and in a way that will withstand scrutiny by the regulator.
If the email deluge has clogged up your inbox, we have some good news for you. You can achieve "Inbox Zero".
The first in a series of blogs on AI by Dr Jeroen Vendrig, from Canon Information Systems Research Australia (CISRA)
The second in a series of blogs by A.I. expert Dr Jeroen Vendrig
While email has become an everyday part of our work-life, you still might be doing it wrong.
If you’ve recently started working from home, you’re probably on a lot of video calls. You might also be wondering why video conferencing is so exhausting.
Protecting your patient data is increasingly complex with threats of cyber-attacks and data breaches coming from both inside and outside your practice.
Email isn’t going anywhere, but there may be better ways to communicate and collaborate with your colleagues
As technology enters classrooms, auditoriums and libraries, it brings new risks to the education sector. All it takes is one click from a student device to potentially compromise your entire network. Faced with these various threats, does the education sector receive a ‘High Distinction’ for its efforts to protect its troves of student and staff data? Recent findings from the inaugural Canon Business Readiness Index on Security suggest not.
There is a lack of clear standards relating to how school records should be secured. As a result, the level of security varies from school to school, and sometimes within an institution itself. What can you do to ensure your school is exercising best practice with your school records?
While you’ve probably spent your entire teaching career recommending to parents that their kids get in the habit of studying from a young age, there’s much debate about how young is too young.
In February, Australia’s privacy laws will change. If your school is non-government and earns more than $3 million a year in revenue, then these changes will apply to you.