Hi !
One of the most difficult things when managing solutions like Google Workspace for Education or Microsoft 365 is handling the changes that are regularly rolled out in those respective solutions.
This is about governance/management, which means that the school authority/owner should ideally have people who are able to keep track of changes and handle them.
What do we mean by âhandling changesâ?
Well, it can mean that changes being rolled out require you, as the school authority/owner and data controller, to adjust your internal control systemâfor example, by updating your records of processing activities or your DPIA.
Because if an entirely new service suddenly becomes part of M365, it may mean that you need to consider whether using it means you are now processing more personal data than you did before. And that, in turn, means you need to consider whether you have a lawful basis for processing, and whether your risk picture has changed.
So you need people who keep track of what changes are comingâand you also need access to people who can help them assess what consequences these changes have for you as school owners and data controllers.
This is only accelerating now, as these platforms increasingly roll out AI functionality, for example generative AI.
At SkoleSec, we have previously produced a guide on how to address this in connection with the DPIA for the use of Google Workspace for Education in schools. You can read it here.
We are now working on a DPIA for the use of Microsoft 365 in schools, and we would like to hear from youâwho are constantly running behind trying to stay updated on what changes are happening in M365:
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What would make it easier for you and your school authority/owner to manage changes in M365?
But let me make this a bit more concrete:
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How would you like Microsoft to communicate changes?
- How far in advance should information be provided?
- What resources do you want internally at your own school authority/owner to be able to assess what you should do about the changes?
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What kind of internal governance setup do you feel you are missing?
- Are there things Microsoft could do better? Are there things that are simply rolled out and enabled by default? Should things be off by default? Or is Microsoft good at giving you, as data controllers, the control you need?
Yes, weâre basically asking what you want for Christmas!
And with that, all of us at SkoleSec wish you a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it), a good holiday, and a Happy New Year! This is the last newsletter before the holidays.
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.