Your challenges
These days, vast amounts of information are stored and processed by universities and colleges. Personal data about living individuals such as students and staff must be kept secure and be processed in accordance with individuals' rights and the eight data protection principles. Other information that is not personal data is increasingly required to be made public by higher and further education bodies, which are regarded as public authorities for these purposes. At times, difficult balancing exercises are required when competing interests are at issue. Decisions of the Office of the Information Commissioner increasingly require disclosure to be made.
Achieving your ambitions
Good records management and keeping up to date with best practice and case law are two key ways to stay ahead of the legal and practical issues in this area. Responding to subject access requests and freedom of information requests can be time consuming. Having good internal systems can help to streamline the gathering of the information within the time periods set out in the legislation. In most cases, disclosure is a matter of routine but the strategic significance or sensitivity of disclosure in some cases should not be overlooked. We can provide advice to help institutions work through the decisions that need to be made and weigh considerations relating to the public interest.
The strength you need
Our public law and regulatory team has considerable experience of advising on the strategic and operational issues of data protection and freedom of information legislation. Each month, our public law professional support lawyer provides our team with a tracker of the latest developments in this area to keep us ahead of emerging decisions and guidance from the Office of the Information Commissioner.
A recent case we were involved with concerned a private sector property developer, which threatened injunction proceedings against our client for purported breach of confidence following a Freedom of Information Act request, leading to an appeal to the Information Appeals Tribunal. A close examination of the statutory exemptions and the commercial interests of the parties was required.
Lawyers you can trust
We provided input to the government department on the implications for the education sector of the Data Protection Bill during its passage through Parliament and have kept our clients and the sector up to date on developments in this emerging area of law. Our advice to clients on individual cases has been supported by decision notices of the Office of the Information Commissioner, for example, on the exercise of exemptions in appropriate circumstances.