Marion High School
www.marionhigh.co.za

Privacy Policy

  1. Purpose

This Privacy Policy describes the processes, procedures and guidelines applied by Marion High School and Marion Primary School (the Schools), during the collection, retention, use, disclosure and other processing of personal information, including special personal information, in terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).  It explains how we protect and use your personal information and how you can exercise your right to privacy.

 

  1. Definitions
    • Educator: means any person, excluding a person who is appointed to exclusively perform extracurricular duties, who teaches, educates or trains other persons or who provides professional educational services, including professional therapy and education psychological services, at a school
    • Learner: means any person receiving education or obliged to receive education in terms of the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996;
    • Personal information: is any information (including an opinion) about an identified or identifiable person, and it includes but is not limited to:
  • Your name and surname;
  • Your identity number;
  • Your marital status, race, gender and age;
  • Your address, contact details and bank details;
  • Your medical records;
  • Your financial records; and copies of any private or confidential correspondence between you and the School, its administrators and service providers.
    • Parent: means-
  1. The biological or adoptive parent or legal guardian of a learner;
  2. The person legally entitled to custody of a learner; or
  3. The person who undertakes to fulfil the obligations of a person referred to in items a. and b. towards the learner’s education at school.
    • Processing: means any operations concerning personal information, including the collection, receipt, recording, organization, collation, storage, updating, modification, retrieval, alteration, consultation, use, dissemination by means of transmission, distribution or making available in any other form, merging, linking as well as blocking, degradation, erasure or destruction of information.

 

  1. Objectives

The objectives of this policy are to:

  • Explain how we protect and use your personal information; and
  • Record the procedures and practices adopted by the School relating to the processing of personal information.

This policy regulates the processing of personal information by the School and adopts the principles set out in POPIA for the lawful processing of personal information.

 

This policy is not, however, a comprehensive statement of all the provisions of POPIA and should not be taken as such.  All provisions of POPIA must be complied with by the School and its staff regardless of whether or not they are addressed in this Policy.

 

  1. Scope

This policy applies to the Processing of Personal Information by the School, and is applicable to all parents, learners, educators, customers and service providers of the School.

5. Policy

    • Overview

The School processes personal information to ensure the effective functioning, control and management of the School in terms of the South African Schools Act, 84 of 1996 and other school related laws and regulations.

The type of information we collect will be determined by the purpose for which it will be used.

 

  • How do we collect personal information?

The School may ask you to voluntarily supply personal information, for example when you enroll your child at the school.

 

  • What personal information do we collect about you and why?

The personal information we may collect and why and how we use it depends on our relationship with you.

Personal information can extend to any information where you can be identified directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier (for example, a name or email address, or an online identifier such as a unique device identification number).

POPIA requires that personal information “is collected for a specific, explicitly defined and lawful purpose related to a function or activity of the responsible party.”

The table set out in Appendix A of this policy sets out a list of the types of information we collect and explains why we collect and use it.

We will typically collect and use the information for the following purposes:

  • To enroll a learner at the school;
  • For compliance with our legal obligations;
  • For the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party;
  • Because it is necessary for carrying out obligations or exercising rights relative to labour law.

 

  • Sensitive / Special Personal Information

Under privacy laws, certain categories of personal information are considered particularly sensitive or special and therefore need additional protection.  This includes information about racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or affiliations, trade union membership, health or medical conditions, genetic or biometric information, sexual orientation, or criminal convictions and offences.  The School will only collect, manage and use your sensitive / special personal information where we have obtained your explicit consent or where we have other lawful grounds to do so under applicable law.

 

  • How do we hold personal information?

We may hold your personal information in electronic or in hard copy form.  We may keep this information at our own premises, or at sites managed by our service providers.  We are committed to keeping your personal information safe, confidential and secure.  We use a range of physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to do this.  We update these safeguards from time to time in order to address new and emerging security threats.  We also train our staff on privacy matters as appropriate, and seek to limit access to personal information to those who need to know that information.

 

  • Retention of Personal Information

We retain personal information we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate reason to do so.  The School shall only retain and store your personal information for the period for which the information is required to serve the primary purpose for its collection, or a legitimate interest or the period required to comply with applicable legal requirements, whichever is longer.  We apply our standard document retention and disposal procedures and processes to records that include personal information.  These procedures and processes take account of document retention requirements imposed by law in the jurisdictions where we operate. 

 

  • How do we disclose personal information?

Your personal information may be disclosed between related departments within the School and used by those departments for the purposes for which we are entitled to use it. 

In appropriate circumstances, we may disclose your personal information to the following categories of third parties:

  • Auditors, legal and other professional advisers;
  • Information technology;
  • Government and law enforcement authorities;
  • Financial institutions;
  • Other third parties where disclosure is required by law; and
  • To any other person with your consent to the disclosure.

We undertake to take reasonable steps to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information when it is disclosed to a third party, and seek to ensure the third party deals with your personal information in accordance with our instructions, applicable privacy laws, and only for the purpose for which it is disclosed.

 

  • What rights do you have and how can you exercise them?

You have the right to:

  • Ask what personal information we hold about you;
  • Request access to the personal information that we hold about you;
  • Ask us to update, correct or delete any out-of-date or incorrect personal information we hold about you;
  • Object to the processing of your personal information.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights or you have any queries regarding the personal information that we hold about you, you can contact us at the details provided below.

To protect the integrity and security of the personal information we hold, we may ask that you follow a defined access procedure, which may include steps to verify your identity.

If you want us to delete all personal information we have about you, we may need to terminate the agreement we have with you.  We can refuse to delete your information if we are required by law to retain it or if we need it to protect our rights.

 

  • Who can I contact if I have a question or a complaint?

If you have a question, concern or complaint regarding the way in which we handle your personal information, or if you believe that the School has failed to comply with this policy or breached any applicable law in relation to the management of that information, you can make a complaint in writing to

 

The Information Officer: jaglalc@marionhigh.co.za or shahindjaglal@gmail.com

By mail: The Information Officer, 281 Prince Alfred Street, Pietermaritzburg, 3201

 

Annexure A: Types of Information we collect and why we use it

The following table sets out a lost of the types of information / data we collect and why we use it.

 

Data / Information Type Why do we use this information
Identification data: such as you and the learner’s name; gender, photograph; date of birth, identification number. To enroll learners, enter into employment contracts with educators, enter into contracts with service providers.   
Contact details: such as your home and work address; telephone numbers; email addresses and emergency contact details. Enable the school to make contact with learners’ parents or legal guardians, educators or service providers.
Health information: such as any chronic conditions the school needs to aware, your medical aid details. To enable the school to assist you when the need arises or in the event of you requiring urgent medical attention.
Employment details: such as job title / position, classroom number, employment contract, training information, performance and disciplinary records, grievance procedures, hours of work, sickness / holiday records, details of termination or resignation of employment, details of promotions, transfers and secondments.  To carry out a contract with our educators, monitor their compliance with our policies / standards / procedures and provide training and benefits and provide remuneration.

 
Background information: such as academic / professional qualifications, education, CV, language skills, details of spouses, references, previous employer details, membership of professional or trade association or trade union. To undertake due diligence and to enter into and perform a contract with educators.  To carry out education and training programs, to carry out planning and forecasting activities, to authorize you to perform work within the School. 
Employment equity information: such as race and gender (where required by local law). To comply with statutory reporting obligations under applicable local laws.
National identifiers: such as national ID / passport, birth certificate, immigration / visa status. To undertake due diligence, to enter into and perform a contract with you, to carry out education and training programs, to carry out planning and forecasting activities.
Financial information: such as banking details, tax information, withholdings, salary, benefits and expenses. To carry out our contract with educators and provide them with remuneration.  To process school fees and exemption applications and provide for payment of our service providers.

 

 

 

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