[4.5.2020] The State Commissioner for Data Protection (LfD) Lower Saxony continues to speak clearly against the use of WhatsApp in schools. Given the corona pandemic, it does pose certain concerns for a limited period of time. The Lower Saxony Ministry of Culture must now examine alternatives to messenger with high pressure.
The State Commissioner for Data Protection (LfD) Lower Saxony, Barbara Thiel, now emphasizes that she has neither recommended nor approved the use of WhatsApp in schools. In doing so, it is responding to a guideline from the Lower Saxony Ministry of Culture (MK) on schools in Corona times. Accordingly, it is temporarily permitted for teacher-student contact to use messengers such as WhatsApp. “In the past, I have always spoken out very clearly against the use of WhatsApp in schools,” says Thiel. “This attitude still applies and thus corresponds to the position of other state data protection officers.” In view of the corona pandemic and the increased need for digital communication in schools, she was prepared, however, to defer certain concerns in individual cases for a limited period of time. “Nevertheless, certain general conditions must be observed when using messengers by public authorities,” says Thiel. One of these conditions is that communication should be as economical as possible. WhatsApp definitely doesn’t meet this requirement. All contact data stored in the user’s phone are transferred to the provider as soon as they register. According to the LfD, there is no legal basis for this, and the people who are stored in the user phone can neither consent to the data transfer nor object to it. “There are significantly more data-efficient messenger services on the market that offer the same communication options. I therefore ask the Ministry of Culture to seriously consider alternatives to WhatsApp and to inform the schools of the results of this examination so that they can use data protection-friendly services. ”According to Thiel, this should have been done some time ago if she had concerns about WhatsApp but has repeatedly been raised in the past. Due to these failures of the ministry, it is now necessary to work intensively on solutions that comply with data protection. “I will also inform the ministry directly about my positions,” announced Thiel, adding: “It is extremely unfortunate that teachers and pupils are now initially unable to use privacy-friendly messengers in times of crisis,” said Thiel . (ba)
Keywords: social media, Lower Saxony, data protection, Barbara Thiel, school IT, messenger, Corona
– .
