MEMO TO: Directors of Education & Superintendents
COPY TO: OCSOA, OCSTA, AGEFO, COSBO
FROM: OASBO Privacy & Information Management Committee
RE: Role Based Privacy Training
As you may be aware, the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) has, as one of their four pillared strategic priorities, included the importance of Children and Youth in a Digital World. Their mandate is to “…hold institutions accountable for protecting the children and youth they serve”. They have advised that school boards provide Role Based Privacy Training to all their staff.
Regional Internal Audits of school board privacy practices have consistently identified gaps in privacy training. Boards may or may not have mandatory privacy training and it may or may not directly relate to the various roles within the boards.
In March 2021, to reduce duplication of efforts in school boards across the province, the OASBO Privacy & Information Management Committee struck a sub-committee to identify school board roles and develop a training framework that would meet the needs identified by the IPC and the Regional Internal Audit Teams. Boards represented on the committee included CSC Franco-Nord, Halton Catholic DSB, Hamilton-Wentworth DSB, St. Clair Catholic DSB, Wellington Catholic DSB, Waterloo Catholic DSB, and York Catholic DSB.
The project mandate was shared with the Ministry’s K-12 Cyber Protection Strategy (CPS) Team as portions of the training touch on technology related opportunities for privacy. The remainder of the 2020-21 school year was spent creating a framework and obtaining funding that could support the creation of a Role Based Privacy Training applicable to all Ontario School Boards. The framework was then legally vetted by Nadya Tymochenko of Miller Thomson LLP.
The sub-committee partnered with COSBO’s Collaborative Effectiveness and Efficiency Project Committee to obtain funding and with OECM to source the project. The successful supplier, GEVC, was contracted to utilize the provided framework to create an AODA compliant, role based privacy training program in both English and French for use by all school boards across the province. The modules can be branded and customized by each school board and are designed to work with Learning Management System training tools.
Today, we are pleased to present “Privacy Matters”, a series of training modules and accompanying resource materials that are ready for distribution. GEVC will assist in the short term to make sure the training is compatible with learning management systems used by Ontario school boards. Included in the work product are 7 modules, 10 case studies and 2 posters along with a role matrix. The role matrix will serve as a starting point for determining which modules are most applicable for the various board roles.
Training Modules
|
Modules |
Recommended Roles |
|
Privacy Foundations I |
All Staff |
|
Privacy Foundations II |
All Staff |
|
Information Lifecycle |
Administrative/Professional Student Services |
|
School Environment |
School Office Teachers/Curriculum Teams |
|
Using and Sharing Data |
All Staff |
|
Personal Health Information Protection Act |
Special Education/Mental Health Services |
|
Digital Tools and Electronic Communication |
School Staff/Curriculum/Special Education/Communications |
Additional Resources:
1. Case Studies
2. Awareness Posters
3. Role Matrix
Next Steps
The link to access the training modules, case studies and posters will be posted to the OASBO Resources site which is an open site and does not require membership in OASBO to access. We will also be reaching out to ECNO, OESC, OPSOA, OCSOA, AGEFO to ascertain interest in placing a link to these OASBO training resources on their Resource Pages. Information will be provided to assist with downloading materials into board supported learning management systems.
Conclusion
We’d like to thank the OASBO Privacy and Information Management Committee, sub-committee team members and OASBO for sponsoring this project. We’d also like to thank COSBO’s Collaborative Effectiveness & Efficiency Committee for providing the funding to make it possible. If you would like a brief presentation of the materials at your next meeting, please contact us through the Co-chairs of our OASBO Privacy and Information Management Committee:
Linda Swanson: Linda.Swanson@ugdsb.on.ca
Todd Bertrand: bertrant@franco-nord.ca
Sincerely,
Linda Swanson Todd Bertrand
OASBO Privacy & Information Management Committee – Co Chairs
Gerry Cullen
OASBO Executive Director
