Working Towards an Understanding of Privacy and Boundaries for Educators in BC
This week has been a struggle in working towards understanding privacy laws, and how they pertain to educators in British Columbia (BC), Canada. I have touched on legal guidelines surrounding privacy laws, and I am now keenly aware of what I have to learn and, more importantly, what I have yet to implement in my teaching practice and course design. Cavoukian (2011) notes in her Privacy by Design approach that privacy measures should be proactive rather than reactive. Also, as Hengstler (2013) quotes in her handbook Primer on Posting Minor Students Final.pdf:
Privacy-sensitivity to new technologies needs to occur at the beginning of the course development and delivery process, not in the middle when a privacy breach has occurred. If, after all cautions have been taken and a privacy breach still occurs and the individual harmed complains to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, then the instructor can show a history and record of due diligence…
From Privacy Guide for Faculty Using 3rd Party Web Technology (Social Media) in Public Post-Secondary Courses (Cooper, Southwell, & Portal, 2011, 14).
(P.3)
Hengstler (2014) theorizes a continuum of six compliance positions for educators (Avoidance, Ignorance, Knowledgeable Non-Compliance, Approaching Compliance, Establishing Compliance, & Full Compliance), and upon reading about these six positions with regard to the application of British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), I recognize I have work to do towards reaching Full Compliance of social media and cloud computing tools in my online practice. More concerning is that many educators don't recognize that FIPPA compliance is required. BC educators are required to abide by laws that are more stringent than the laws of other provinces and many countries: BC's privacy laws are said to equal the high standards of countries such as the England. Will legislation inhibit social learning and collaboration with others around the world, or will BC teachers be able to rise to the challenge and collaboratively uphold the law? Will we manage to, as danah boyd (2010) comments, "hold the architecture around us accountable" for helping to maintain privacy?
References
boyd, d. (2010) "Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity". Speech transcript from SXSW, Austin, Texas, March 13,
2010. http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html
Cavoukian, A. (2011). 7 principles of privacy by design. Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
www.ipc.on.ca/images/resources/7foundationalprinciples.pdf
Hengstler, J. (2013). A K-12 primer for British Columbia teachers posting students' work online. Blog post retrieved September 13,
2015, from http://jhengstler.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/a-k-12-primer-for-british-columbia-teachers-posting-students-work-
online/ Paper retrieved from: http://etec.ctlt.ubc.ca/510wiki/images/2/2b/Primer_on_Posting_Minor_Students_Final.pdf
Hengstler, J. (2014). "The Compliance Continuum: FIPPA & BC Educators". Blog post retrieved September 13, 2015,
from: http://jhengstler.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/the-compliance-continuum-fippa-bc-public-educators/ Paper retrieved
from: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ridcqq14a7k9543/Compliance_Continuum_5_06_14-1.pdf
Van Den Bulk, J. (March 2011). Privacy and access in British Columbia: BC’s freedom of information and protection of privacy act.
Office of the CIO. Province of British Columbia. Retrieved September 14, 2015, from
https://www2.viu.ca/foipop/documents/privacy-and-access-in-bc.pdf
Legislative framework. populationdataBC. Retrieved September 15, 2015, from
https://www.popdata.bc.ca/privacy/policies/legislativeframework
Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC BC). (February 2012). Cloud Computing Guidelines for
Public Bodies. http://www.oipc.bc.ca/guidance-documents/1427