Hi !
One of the things we need to assess in the national DPIA for M365 is all the different learning accelator that are part of the M365 portfolio. When you purchase M365 and plan to use it in schools, a package of services called learning accelator comes with it. One of them is called "Reflect."
NRK recently wrote about the "Reflect" learning accelator.
"Reflect" asks students to indicate how they feel today, then shares that information with the teacher. The student can indicate feelings such as "anxious," "nervous," "stressed," "worthless," but also positive emotions like "confident," "creative," "inspired," or "valued."
In the national DPIA for M365, we will not assess whether this tool violates GDPR. That is not our role.
What we will assess is whether Norwegian school owners can use this tool while fulfilling their privacy obligations under GDPR, as well as the obligations under the Norwegian Education Act.
This is an important nuance. Because often when conducting such assessments, you will hear from the tool provider that "the tool is GDPR-compliant" or that the provider is.
And that's fine. But we are not interested in the compliance of the provider or Microsoft. We are interested in the compliance of the Norwegian school owner.
In this context, there are several things we need to look at, but here are some of them:
🟢 We need to gather the data subject’s opinion about these learning accelators. We are particularly interested in hearing what students think about teachers receiving this kind of information about them, and what educational benefit the teachers gain from the information.
🟢 We need to assess whether Norwegian school owners have a valid legal basis (both under the Personal Data Protection Act and the Education Act) to process this type of personal data about students.
🟢 We need to identify the purpose of processing this type of personal data. Can we derive a purpose from the Education Act?
🟢 We need to evaluate whether these tools are necessary for Norwegian schools to fulfill the purposes outlined in the Education Act.
I wish you a wonderful, privacy-friendly week-end!
Best regards,
Ida Thorsrud
Project manager national DPIA
This newsletter was translated from Norwegian to English with assistance from ChatGPT by OpenAI. While it guided our translation, we made independent editorial choices. Any discrepancies result from this combined approach.