Parents of schoolchildren in Bengaluru raise concern over likely data breach

BENGALURU: Rahul R (name changed), father of a class 10 student, finds his phone spammed with messages and calls from coaching institutes and PU colleges these days, asking him if he needs information on admissions and leaving him clueless on how the callers got his phone number. He was all the more perplexed because he had neither visited any of those websites nor looked up the Internet for information on them.
Rahul is not alone. Hundreds of parents in the city are being spammed with similar messages and calls, raising concern over a possible data leak. TOI had reported earlier this week that the state education department was insisting on students sharing their Aadhaar card numbers.
Mohammed Shakeel, the president of Voice of Parents and himself the parent of a class 10 student, said that schools share data with different vendors, resulting in a spike in such calls. “Private data of minors and their parents, provided to schools, is shared by most schools with third-party service providers or vendors. This results in data breach and may even compromise the security of schoolchildren,” Shakeel said.
“Suitable measures must be taken to protect data provided to schools. It must be stored in the systems/servers of the school and must not be outsourced or shared with third-party service providers. Any contract with such parties must be revoked with immediate effect to ensure the safety of children,” he added.
However, D Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Association of Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools of Karnataka, alleged that it is not the schools but officials at the department of education who are the more likely source behind the leak. “It is a common practice that officials send Google spreadsheets on WhatsApp groups and ask schools to fill in the data of students or teachers. We have now warned all our members not to share any data unless officially sought,” he said.
The department of school education, though, has denied the charge. “These are unsubstantiated allegations. What proof do school associations have about education department officials leaking data? If at all the associations can prove any [department] official’s involvement, we are ready to take action,” said Vishal R, the commissioner, department of school education.
However, experts say the issue is old and the leak can happen in many ways, with data sets being available online.
“There are various government systems that collect children’s data — scholarship programmes, exam results, admission to government institutions like Kendriya Vidyalaya. These are known issues. The problem is that data is not protected the way it should be,” said Anivar Aravind, a digital rights activist.
Ruing that no steps are being taken by the government or education department to ensure data privacy, Aravind said even as a data protection Bill is around the corner in Parliament, there is no clarity yet on data consent. “And parents are at a non-negotiable end as they have to share these details to be able to access the services,” said Aravind.