Mirosław Wróblewski, President of Poland’s Personal Data Protection Office, has presented comments on the draft amendments to the Education Law. The supervisory authority supports the general direction of measures aimed at limiting the use of mobile phones and other electronic devices by children and young people during their time at school. At the same time, it points out that the proposed provisions should be made more precise to ensure compliance with the principles of personal data protection and privacy.
According to the President of the Personal Data Protection Office, the issue of phone use in educational institutions should not be addressed solely at the level of individual school statutes. Systemic solutions are needed and should be incorporated into the Education Law. Their purpose would be to reduce the risks associated with recording images and sound, publishing materials online, and using new technologies to violate the privacy of students and teachers.
Phones in schools and personal data protection
The President of the Personal Data Protection Office noted that children and young people are increasingly processing other people’s personal data using private electronic devices. This primarily concerns taking photographs, recording videos and audio, and then publishing such materials online or sending them to others.
Such actions may lead to serious privacy violations. Photographs and recordings may include other students, teachers or school employees who have not consented to the recording or dissemination of their image. In the authority’s view, recording images and sound is a particularly invasive form of personal data processing because it may infringe the rights and freedoms of the people being recorded.
The supervisory authority also points to broader risks linked to minors’ use of the internet and digital tools. These include the risk of behavioural addictions, including addiction to pornography or online gambling.
Deepfakes as a new threat to students
One of the issues of particular concern to the President of the Personal Data Protection Office is the use of deepfake technology. It makes it possible to create fake but realistic-looking photographs, video recordings or voice recordings. In practice, it can be used to ridicule, blackmail, harass or violate the dignity and privacy of specific individuals.
The authority stresses that such actions may lead to harmful and unlawful processing of personal data. This problem is especially serious in the school environment, where materials involving students can spread rapidly through social media and messaging platforms.
The President of the Personal Data Protection Office has previously drawn attention to the need to introduce statutory solutions that would provide effective protection against the harmful use of deepfakes. The issue has also been discussed during a meeting of the parliamentary Committee on Children and Youth.
A school statute is not enough
The draft amendments to the Education Law provide for the possibility of regulating the use of mobile phones and other electronic devices in school statutes. However, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office argues that this solution requires greater precision.
In the authority’s opinion, it should be clearly specified whether allowing the use of electronic devices also means allowing the recording of images and sound. This is important because using a phone to contact a parent, access an educational app or check a timetable is different from recording other people.
The authority emphasises that a school statute cannot independently determine the conditions for processing personal data on students’ private devices. This means that the legislator should clearly define the framework within which schools may regulate the use of phones, especially when it comes to recording sound and images.
Clear rules are needed for bringing and storing devices
The President of the Personal Data Protection Office has also proposed clarifying the terms used in the draft provisions. This particularly concerns the phrase “conditions for bringing” phones and other electronic devices onto school premises.
According to the supervisory authority, this term should either be explained or replaced with more unambiguous wording. This would help avoid misunderstandings over whether a school may only set rules for phone use or whether it may also require phones to be deposited or restrict the possession of devices during lessons.
The authority indicates that the draft could be supplemented with rules on the safe storage of phones and other electronic devices while a child is at school. Such a solution could reduce the risk of students and teachers being recorded, but it would have to be properly described so as not to create further legal uncertainty.
Adult students require a separate assessment
Adult students are a separate issue. The President of the Personal Data Protection Office noted that the proposed rules on bringing and using phones by such individuals should be assessed from the perspective of constitutional freedoms and fundamental rights.
Adult students have a different legal status from minors. This does not mean, however, that schools cannot introduce restrictions for them. Such restrictions must have a clearly defined purpose, be proportionate and serve to protect the interests of all people present on school premises.
In the authority’s opinion, such a purpose may include ensuring students’ well-being, protecting privacy and reducing the risk of personal data breaches. The condition, however, is that the interests of the school, minor students, adult students and other people present in the institution must be properly balanced.
The authority wants systemic regulations
The President of the Personal Data Protection Office believes that the problem of safe phone use by children and young people should be addressed comprehensively. This means regulating the issue not only in school statutes, but above all in the provisions of the Education Law.
The supervisory authority also recalled its earlier comments on the draft amendments to the regulation concerning organised leisure activities for children and young people. In the authority’s view, rules on the use of mobile phones should also be defined during summer camps, school trips and other forms of organised recreation.
In practice, this means creating coherent rules for the use of electronic devices by children and young people both at school and outside it, whenever they remain under the care of educational institutions or organisers of leisure activities.
Education remains essential
The Personal Data Protection Office emphasises that legal provisions alone will not solve all the problems related to students’ use of phones. Educational activities aimed at children, young people, parents and teachers should also play an important role.
Such education should cover not only the rules of personal data protection, but also responsibility for publishing photographs and recordings, the consequences of violating other people’s privacy, the risks associated with deepfakes and safe internet use.
From the perspective of the supervisory authority, restrictions on phone use should therefore go hand in hand with building digital awareness. Only this approach can realistically reduce the scale of privacy and personal data violations in the school environment.
Source: CEO.com.pl
