The Norwegian Education Mirror 2022
Pupils’ privacy protection and school owners’ responsibility
The increased use of digital teaching aids and tools actualises the handling and storage of both user data and pupils' personal information. School owners are responsible for ensuring that such data is stored and filed in accordance with regulations. Children have a special requirement for protection, and generally are not free to choose for themselves the kind of digital teaching aids they will use.
The tools used are usually supplied by private entities. The largest suppliers are Microsoft, Apple and Google. The teaching aids and tools that are available to pupils can vary between the different platforms. Such 'platformisation' is a trend that can also be seen internationally (Baker et al. 2021, Sefton-Green 2021). School owners have thus less opportunity to influence companies' handling of pupils' personal information (NOU 2022: 11).
Increased awareness of privacy protection and data security
8 in 10 school owners say that privacy and data security in schools are themes in their municipality's/county municipality's plan for digitalisation (Bergene et al. 2022). The largest municipalities state this to a greater extent than smaller municipalities.
In 2021, consulting company Bouvet investigated the state of privacy protection in schools. In the report, it was concluded that privacy is largely safeguarded when using teaching resources/teaching materials provided by Norwegian parties, and when using licenced applications for individual topics and specific purposes. However, the risk is greater if free applications and online services are used. Among teachers, there is a greater understanding than before of the risk that free services can contain (Bouvet 2021). Many municipalities lack the expertise and capacity to carry out assessments of information security, privacy protection and universal design. This means that some municipalities choose to use fewer digital solutions.
A software platform can be a software platform that is used in teaching. The most used platforms in Norway are Microsoft 365, Google Workspace for Education, or Apple's applications, including Showbie, Pages and Numbers, to name a few. In Norway, the school owners normally choose the platform for their school. Some of the publishers who create digital teaching aids have also established their own learning platforms.