Education sector must prioritise data protection

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Even as we discuss how the National Education Policy 2020 could help India emerge as a global education powerhouse, it is time we turned our attention to an issue which often gets buried amid all the talk on pedagogy, quality of teaching, and learning outcomes — data privacy of students.

It is the need of India’s humongous education sector — already one of the biggest in terms of size worldwide — to voluntarily start taking steps to effectively safeguard confidential personal data of their students. This is all the more important given that, on a combined basis, our schools, colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions likely have access to key data of around 300 million students, or close to a fourth of the total Indian population at any given point in time.

As things stand currently, there is no clarity on how securely student data is being held by the 1.5 million-plus schools and more than 50,000 higher education institutions which make up India’s education landscape. Considering the limited number of institutions having privacy policies mentioned on their websites, it is not clear with whom such information is being shared, apart from regulatory bodies and agencies authorised by law to seek such data.

Matters are not helped by the fact that in several instances there is also either no information or very little available in the public domain on the trusts and/or trustees running the numerous private educational institutions in India. As this, in turn, compounds the difficulties of students when it comes to forming an objective opinion on the institutions that are likely to protect their data in the best possible manner.

Although the NEP 2020 outlines numerous measures to leverage technology for education delivery, it does not specifically mention how educational institutions should protect the data they obtain on students (often, admittedly, for complying with different regulatory requirements) so that this information is not compromised and possibly misused.

That being said, even today there is nothing preventing educational institutions from gearing themselves up to implement norms laid down for data fiduciaries in The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, and not wait to do so till the Bill becomes an Act. Or, the central and state governments and/or their relevant regulatory bodies urging educational institutions over which they exercise control to start majorly focusing on the issue of protecting the personal data of students.

Schools, colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions getting down to the job of putting in place the mechanisms necessary to emerge as reliable data fiduciaries from now itself would benefit millions of students, and, also, contribute in a major way to strengthening the framework for personal data protection in the country.

That is not all.

By displaying greater intent on the issue of personal data protection, educational authorities may significantly lend momentum to ongoing efforts of building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).

Educational institutions according greater stress on ensuring that student data is kept safe could spur the economy (the digital one mainly in this case) and, also, likely lead to the development of additional digital infrastructure and deployment of advanced technological systems. It could, further, create business opportunities for technology companies, including start-ups, and ensure that students from developed countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, for example, do not shy away from enrolling at Indian higher education institutions due to apprehensions over the issue of personal data protection here.

Sumali Moitra is a current affairs commentator. Twitter: @sumalimoitra. Views are personal.