The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018 will determine how people’s personal data is processed and kept safe, and the legal rights individuals have in relation to their own data.

‘Personal data’ means information that can identify a living individual. The regulation has applied to all schools from 25 May 2018, and has been updated as a result of the UK leaving the EU.

Main principles

The GDPR sets out the key principles that all personal data must be processed in line with.

Data must be: processed lawfully, fairly and transparently; collected for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes; limited to what is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed; accurate and kept up to date; held securely; only retained for as long as is necessary for the reasons it was collected.

There are also stronger rights for individuals regarding their own data. The individual’s rights include: to be informed about how their data is used, to have access to their data, to rectify incorrect information, to have their data erased, to restrict how their data is used, to move their data from one organisation to another, and to object to their data being used at all

The GDPR is similar to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 (which schools already comply with), but strengthens many of the DPA’s principles.