Hessian parent representatives are calling for non-data protection compliant video conferencing systems such as Microsoft Teams, Webex and Zoom to be tolerated in schools for a little longer.

The Hessian data protection officer only intends to do this until the end of July.

The parents argue that many schools are still dependent on these channels that they established during the Corona period for teaching and for direct communication between students and teachers.

Because there is still a lack of a stable, mature system as part of the Hessian school portal - and it is not to be expected anytime soon.

Therefore, they wanted the tolerance to be extended until the end of the next school year, as in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Florentine Fritzen

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

    This is what it says in an open letter from more than 20 city and district parents' councils to Minister of Education Alexander Lorz (CDU) and the Hessian data protection officer Alexander Roßnagel.

    Parents fear that schools will close again in autumn and winter and that distance learning will be offered again.

    Also, children from risk groups could not go back to class in the new school year.

    While the schools in some districts use data protection-compliant systems such as BigBlueButton, others have opted for systems mainly from US providers that are not data protection compliant.

    Teams is particularly popular because it is part of the Microsoft 365 software and service package that many schools use.

    Due to the pandemic, the Hessian data protection officer had declared toleration of these systems in April 2020.

    In August 2020 he extended it because the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs was unable to offer the schools a uniform, data protection-compliant system by the beginning of the 2020/21 school year.

    However, the data protection officer has ruled out extending the tolerance again.

    Software from August

    The ministry no longer intends to do that either. According to a spokesman, the authority wants to provide the schools with video conference software in August. The tender for this is on its last legs. A company will soon be selected whose system will then be linked to the Hessian school portal. Even without tolerance, schools do not have to switch off their current channels immediately at the beginning of the new school year: According to the ministry, there will be a transition period during which they can switch from providers that do not comply with data protection regulations.

    To the parents, however, it seems questionable whether there will be a new, “stable, functioning, stress-tested video system” for the schools for the new school year - “unless one would fall back on an already existing system from an experienced provider”. They therefore want the Ministry of Education and Data Protection “to talk to Microsoft”. It could be beneficial for everyone to “use existing technology and expertise and not reinvent the wheel”.