◇ OpenCyber Academy
Technologist · Chapter 10 · English

Chapter 10 — Data protection and ethics

Open, free learning for anyone who wants to protect people and technology. No account is required to read this text or its worked answers.

Chapter 10 — Data protection and ethics

Lesson map

Lesson 10 published. Map, example, EX028.

flowchart TD
  N0["Learning outcomes"]
  N1["10.1 Pupil data"]
  N2["10.2 Authorisation"]
  N3["10.3 Handling findings"]
  N4["10.4 Using synthetic data"]
  N5["Retention and minimisation"]
  N6["Synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6
  N6 --> EX["Worked example"]
  EX --> Q["Exercise EX028"]

Logical drawing

flowchart LR
  N0["Learning outcomes"]
  N1["10.1 Pupil data"]
  N2["10.2 Authorisation"]
  N3["10.3 Handling findings"]
  N4["10.4 Using synthetic data"]
  N5["Retention and minimisation"]
  N6["Synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6 --> Q["EX028"]

[Learning outcomes]
    |
    v
[10.1 Pupil data]
    |
    v
[10.2 Authorisation]
    |
    v
[10.3 Handling findings]
    |
    v
[10.4 Using synthetic data]
    |
    v
[Retention and minimisation]
    |
    v
[Synthesis]
    |
    v
[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX028]

Learning outcomes

You will (1) explain why pupil data need protection; (2) work within authorisation; (3) handle findings responsibly.

10.1 Pupil data

The management information system holds names, addresses, attendance, medical notes and safeguarding records. Children's data deserve particular care. A breach could harm families and require notifying the regulator.

Medical notes and safeguarding records are the most sensitive, because they can describe a child's health, family circumstances or contact with social services. Even attendance data can reveal patterns, such as regular absences for hospital appointments. Because mis01 holds all of this, Tomás treats every finding about that server, such as its late backup or its password sign-in, as higher priority than the same finding elsewhere.

10.2 Authorisation

Tomás works under a written placement agreement listing what he may access: configuration and logs on servers, exports of account and device data, but not pupil records. He never tests systems in ways that could disrupt them and never uses tools that look for weaknesses by attacking.

The agreement also names Dev as the person who approves every command on a live server and says that any finding involving personal data goes to the data protection officer through Dev. When Tomás is unsure whether something is in scope, the agreement tells him to stop and ask rather than interpret it himself.

10.3 Handling findings

When he finds something sensitive, such as a shared password in a document, he tells Dev privately and does not copy it into notes. Findings are written factually, without blame, and kept inside the trust.

His notes describe the spreadsheet by location and type, not content, so the notes themselves never become a second copy of the passwords. Findings about people, such as the four teachers with administrator rights, are written about the setting rather than the person. Reports leave the trust only in anonymised form for his college work, with synthetic names and figures in place of real ones.

10.4 Using synthetic data

For college work, Tomás replaces all real names and details with synthetic ones. His labs use invented data shaped like the real exports.

The synthetic data keep the shape of the real exports, such as the same column names, date formats and roughly the same number of rows, so the scripts work on both. The account names in his labs, such as k.osei and temp.supply, are invented, and the figures are chosen so the lessons still hold. Renée checks that nothing in his college submission could identify a real pupil, member of staff or school.

Retention and minimisation

Data protection asks organisations to keep only the data they need, for as long as they need it. Tomás applies this to his own work. His project exports contain account names and dates but no other personal details, and they are deleted from his laptop at the end of the placement, with the deletion noted in his log. The trust's security logs follow a retention period agreed with the data protection officer, long enough for investigations but no longer. When preparing college reports, he uses counts and synthetic examples, and if an assessor asks for detail, he describes the method rather than sharing real records.

Worked example

Tomás finds a spreadsheet of passwords on the file server; he tells Dev the location without opening it further, and Dev moves the passwords into a password manager and deletes the file.

Synthetic case. The scenario is synthetic.

Errors and limits

Curiosity is not authorisation: looking at pupil records "just to check" would breach the agreement.

Exercises

Synthesis

Ethical practice means staying within agreed access and handling findings carefully.

Continue studying — chapter 10 of 30

← Chapter 09 (draft) · Course chapter index · Chapter 11 (draft) →