By Heather Park
MANAGING YOUR PTA – Data protection
May 2018 sees the introduction of the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). We’ve spoken to the Fundraising Regulator and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to find out what PTAs need to know
However, if you use supporters’
25 MAY! GET READY FOR
What’s changing? The new regulations mean more stringent rules for how you collect and store supporters’ data. This includes everyone from parents and families to businesses and sponsors, and applies to all processing of personal details, meaning it covers fundraising, online campaigns and volunteering. Every time you contact supporters you’ll need to explain why you’re contacting them and how you will use their data. You need to be compliant with the regulations by 25 May, so familiarise yourselves with them now and start thinking about what measures you need to put in place. GDPR will affect: How you collect personal details How you contact your supporters How you store personal details.
How do PTAs work now? Within a school context, the school itself is classed as a ‘data controller’, which means it is the party that decides how personal data is processed. The PTA sits under that as a ‘data processor’, where they process data on behalf of the school (or data controller). The act of processing data covers collecting and recording information as well as holding and storing it. A quick survey of PTAs found that the most popular form of
communication is social media, with a huge 89% of people using it to contact their supporters. 79% of PTAs use letters in book bags, and 78% have the school send communications on their behalf.
can change dramatically from year to year, meaning there isn’t always one person overseeing areas such as data protection. While everyone’s main focus is organising and running fundraising activities, data protection can be easily overlooked. Risks may not always be obvious, but 22% of the PTAs we surveyed send emails from private email accounts, and many also have parents’ data stored on personal computers with no measures in place to ensure this is deleted when they leave the PTA. So what needs to change?
When do GDPR rules apply? that the new GDPR rules only apply when you use personal data. So you can send indirect communications, promoting a PTA event. This isn’t using personal data because you aren’t including any information Even if parents opt out of receiving communications from the PTA, a
contact details to keep in touch with them about your PTA, that is direct marketing and the new rules will in the Data Protection Act as: ‘the communication (by whatever means) of an advertising or marketing material which is directed at particular individuals’. In these circumstances, you will need to establish a legal way to use supporters’ data. For most PTAs, the two most applicable ways to do this are ‘consent’ and ‘legitimate interest’. You need to choose the most appropriate way based on what you want to do.
Obtaining consent is the need for your supporters to actively consent to receiving communications. This means that individuals need to agree to being contacted by the PTA. This could be by simply ticking an opt-in box on a form. The individual must fully understand that they are giving consent for you to contact them, as well as what they’re agreeing to be contacted about, why their personal information is being collected, what you will do with their information, and to which form of communication it applies, i.e. email and/or SMS. Obtaining initial consent may be
tricky, as you cannot send texts or emails without prior permission, including messages asking for permission! The safest way to get consent is through paper form, which can be distributed without using personal data through book bags (see ‘when do GDPR rules apply?’) or by mail (see ‘legitimate interest’ overleaf). This form should tell your supporters what kind of communications you would like to send and ask supporters to tick an happy to be contacted. You should include a tick box for each channel (e.g. emails, texts, post) and they should tick all that they are happy
pta.co.uk SPRING 2018 17
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THINKSTOCK.CO.UK
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