Why school managers should be extremely careful with children's data

Young African American mother and teenage daughter using laptop and phone together. [Courtesy/GettyImages]

In an age defined by digital footprints and instant sharing, schools have emerged as both centres of learning and nodes in a vast web of data collection and dissemination. Yet, even as they champion technological integration, many schools in Kenya remain oblivious-or willfully ignorant-of the law when it comes to the data privacy of their most vulnerable stakeholders: Children.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) has made its stance unmistakably clear. In recent years, it fined a prominent school, Roma School in Nairobi, for the unauthorised publication of minors' photographs on digital platforms, setting a stern precedent for others who might tread the same reckless path.