Education data retention law
01 August 2002
At the beginning of this year, under the auspices of the parents committee and a multimedia firm, an A-level college introduced a compulsory fingerprinting system which pupils need to go through before being able to order their lunch for the next fortnight. Now the Ministry of Education is planning to extend the practice in a pilot project involving four colleges, to control pupil's access to certain areas of the school. The fingerprinting and the recent Ministry plans follow legal changes introduced last year, allowing the collection and retention of personal data in the education system. The data ranges from exam results and special needs to behavioural assessments and parent's careers, effectively to be used by all public authorities.
The law has raised deep concerns in parent and civil liberties organisations on data protection grounds and in relation to children's rights. The Austrian Federal Law on the Registry of Educational Data (Bildungsdokumentationsgesetz) will allow authorities to "document" (ie. collect and retain for 60 years since the last entry) personal and educational data on students without separating the data from the person concerned. The fingerprinting of pupils has proved critics right that the new law has set a precedent for the practice of broad-based data retention by the authorities and the erosion of privacy rights, rather than representing a genuine government attempt to improve Austria's education system.
Parent's organisations, the Federal Council for Data Protection and civil liberties organisations all protested against the ministerial draft which served as the basis for the current law, when it was published by the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture at the end of June last year. The Austrian Association for Data Protection (ARGE DATEN) rejected the draft wholesale on "constitutional and data protection grounds", and argued that the collection and effective life-long retention of personal data, which will be available to all public authorities, was in contravention to national and international human rights and civil liberties laws. It also said attempting such total control of citizen's personal data was last carried out in Europe during the nazi period. Despite such strong criticism as well as detailed recommendations for changes to the law by a number of organisations, it was passed by parliament (Nationalrat) without major amendments on 6 December last year.
The new law was said to be necessary for obtaining statistical information in order to improve the educational system in Austria. It foresees the creation of a central register of personal data relating to all pupils as well as university students, where the records will be kept for 60 years after the last entry (at the end of university education) where the record will include the following (§3):
Name (first and surnames, including academic grades), date of birth, social security number, gender, nationality, home address and school address, the starting date of the relevant training, the ending date of the relevant training, the institution's student reference number, the professed religion declared by the student or the legal guardian, the first year of compulsory school attendance, recognised special needs, attributes of regular or extraordinary studentship.
The above data collection criteria apply to university students with their relevant examination system as well, whereby they will also have to reveal data on possible participation in international exchanges.
Criticism has been levelled in particular at the recording of special needs requirements, which are seen as subject to teachers' misinterpretation of pupil's behaviour or their possible prejudices, opening the door to stigmatisation in future life and career. The inclusion of other data, "relevant to schooling", has also alerted parents and civil liberties groups to the danger of social profiling and data abuse: the new law stipulate