Personal information leaks from school data

When dusk begins to fall, the mobile phone rings. Three to four text messages read "I will take you home," and a couple of others, "Call me when you feel bored," and still one to two others, "Call me when you are in trouble."

As kind as they seem, the messages are ad spam mails from companies of chauffeur, games and loan services. The phone numbers are registered as spams on the phone and deleted every day, but one who gets these messages are bound to fear that their personal information has been stolen.

Though series of data breaches of financial institutions and telecom service providers have become a devastating issue, personal data is still being leaked everywhere. Collecting personal data in education sectors has also been rampant and the it is hard to judge what kind of information are leaked.

Of course, schools no longer ask students to close their eyes and raise their hands if they have a color TV at home, which was done in the 1970s and 1980s. According to the casebook for handling personal information by schools, which was made since the Personal Information Protection Act took into effect in 2011, schools should minimize gathering information on parents` income, assets, occupation, workplace and educational background.

Some schools, however, still have a practice of collecting personal information of parents through various written forms. Though the excuses are for proper caring of students by understanding their family environment, the information gathered are sometimes too excessive.

One playschool in Seoul`s northern district of Yongsan asks parents to write their job, name of workplace, rank, annual salary, affiliated college and graduate school at the application forms. Rumors are that the school filters students based on their family backgrounds.

One father received a home environment check form from the junior high school his child was attending. Asked to write his job position in detail, he wrote "civil servant at Education Ministry." A few days later, the principal called him and asked, "Our science room is outdated. Can you help?" The father said, "I cannot do that since we are living in a transparent world." After this happening, he tells his colleagues to write "worker at a small and mid-sized firm" on home environment check forms.

In July last year, the Education Ministry announced that it would investigate the state of schools` personal information collection and would correct side effects such as personal life infringement and student discrimination. Yet the same practice are repeating in this year`s first semester.

The situation at private education sector is more severe. A mother consulted a couple of private education institutes for her child, and later she began receiving mails reading "come to our English institute" or "we have good nutritional supplements for children."

A mother living in Daegu applied for an online event held by a private institute in Seoul and had to receive so many phone calls from private education institutes. Putting her child`s school name and grade as well as the phone number at the online event, she got a phone call from an institute in her neighborhood several days later.

Young children are also a target as people entice children by saying, "You can have a toy if you tell me your mom`s phone number and address." One mother said, "I`ve been receiving phone calls from a Taekwondo gym and they`re saying they will visit our home. It`s too fearful."

The insensitivity of education sites reminds this reporter of a press conference hosted by the Office for Government Policy Coordination in February. Since it was a seminar for integration of infant education and care, participation application forms were sent to reporters covering the Prime Minister`s Office, the Education Ministry and the Health and Welfare Ministry. The application form had spaces where the reporters had to write their affiliated high schools and colleges and majors. You never can tell why the affiliated school is important in covering stories.

With the government collecting unnecessary personal data, it may be too much to expect the protection of personal information at the education sector.