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People are definitely getting concerned about the need to secure data in schools. On Tuesday, in the "When too much security means less security" post I mentioned that there are new stricter penalties faced by organisations for losing/disclosing personal data, with fines up to £500,000. And...

In December, my local BBC News station showed an interview with a head teacher, who’d had to crawl across a sloping playground, covered in black ice, to send out a text to let parents know the school was closed. Which surprised me because he was using one of the systems that allows you to send out the...

If you’ve been following the story so far , you’ll know that Becta have published new guidelines for Information Security in schools. It has happened in a few stages, with the detailed information finally being published in the autumn. This included information on the various protection levels that applied...

With the news this week on Information Security guidelines for schools – and the obvious need for encryption on teachers’ laptops from now on, I think it would be timely to remind you how to ensure that you buy the right licences for Windows Vista – so that you get the licences for BitLocker, which is...

This page contains the latest article on Information Security from the blog. For all previous articles , please take a look here. 15th September 2008: The Becta Information Security advice page for schools has been updated, and now provides a more detailed document ( Keeping data safe, secure...

Yesterday I pointed out that the updated Becta advice appeared to ban schools from removing student data from the school, but that the advice wasn't very clear. Since yesterday, they have updated their advice to schools, and now give much clearer, and much stronger, guidance. Firstly, they have...

Last week I wrote that the Becta advice on “Information Security Guidance for Schools” had been updated, effectively banning schools from taking student data out of the school. A few readers commented on the news –‘impossible’ and ‘worried’ came up – and so I’ve been looking for a little more information...

I’ve written about data security a few times recently, prompted by the various incidents of data loss in other government departments. One of the web pages I’ve been watching is the Becta advice page on “Information Security Guidance for Schools”. And I’ve noticed that it was updated last week, and the...

Two emails arrived at the same time last week, which reminded me to write about the issue of data security. The first email was Becta's ictadvicealert email ( sign up here ), which reminded readers about their information security guidance for schools- as they put it " What your school should be doing...