Registration of children in schools and family privacy: another initiative by the Ministry of Education and Science has caused outrage among parents and lawyers
The digitalization of education has long gone beyond electronic journals, online diaries and basic student registers, as the state is increasingly transferring data to electronic systems that were previously stored in paper documents or did not enter school records at all. In such a situation, any attempt to expand the list of information about a child and his family immediately affects a much more sensitive area than the usual organization of education, because we are already talking about the limits of access to private information, the powers of the school and the role of state digital platforms in the everyday life of the family.
What the MES initiative entails
In Kyiv and other cities, active discussions have begun on changes to the procedure for registering preschool and school-age children, proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The project involves updating the system for collecting data on students and parents for further entry of information into the AICOM digital system, through which the state wants to more accurately keep records of children and connect the child with his legal representatives in the electronic environment.
The proposed MES procedure expands the range of information that educational institutions will be able to receive from parents or other legal representatives of a child. Such data include the registration number of the taxpayer registration card of one or both parents, and for those who have refused such a number, the series and number of the passport, as well as other information necessary for identification in state systems.
In practice, this means that school records can go beyond the basic set of information about the child, class, place of residence and form of study and move on to a broader digital linking of family members through state registers. For the ministry, such a model looks like a tool for more accurate administration, while for critics it opens up a completely different plane – the collection of sensitive information about the family through the education system.
Why the MES initiative outraged parents
The MES initiative caused a sharp reaction from some parents, particularly in Kyiv, where the topic quickly went beyond the boundaries of a purely educational discussion. The outrage was caused not by the idea itself of streamlining school records, but by the volume of data that may begin to be required from families, as well as the lack of clear answers to questions about the limits of using this information.
Parents of schoolchildren fear that the new record-keeping procedure will create the basis for a digital family profile, in which, through the connection of various databases, information much broader than the needs of the school may accumulate. Parents react most sharply to the principle itself: if an educational institution begins to collect and transfer data that opens up access to other state registers, then the line between school records and broader control over the family becomes much less clear.
This concern was exacerbated by the assumption that, if a tax number or passport data is available, the system potentially allows the child to be linked to property, tax, social or medical information. Parents saw this as a change in the very content of educational records: the school ceases to be a space where a child’s education is recorded, and is approaching the role of an entry point into a broader system of state data collection.
For Kyiv, this story sounds more acute due to the scale of the city’s educational network, where any innovation instantly affects hundreds of thousands of children, parents, teachers and school administrations. The capital has one of the largest concentrations of schools and kindergartens, a large number of internally displaced families, more difficult routes between residence and study, as well as higher public sensitivity to issues of digital security and state access to personal information.
In addition, it is in Kyiv that any dispute around education quickly moves into the public sphere, where parent communities, lawyers, educational activists and city groups react much more organizedly than in many other regions. Because of this, such a reaction has become indicative for the entire country: what in another city could remain within the framework of a narrow discussion, in the capital has become the subject of broad public criticism.
What lawyers think
Lawyers express their comments on the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science, because it primarily concerns the right to privacy, the inviolability of family life and the clarity of the boundaries within which a state body can request personal information. Critics point out that the proposed changes lack a sufficiently clear description of why the new data is needed in each specific case, who will have access to it, how long it will be stored, and how parents will be able to control the further use of this information.
The problem here also lies in legal certainty, since any expansion of personal data collection requires a clear and understandable framework, without which parents have reason to doubt whether the school will be involved in functions that go far beyond education. In wartime, these concerns sound even more acute, because the issues of security of state data sets, the risk of leaks, and the protection of sensitive information are perceived very differently than in calmer times.
The project is now out for public discussion, and parents, educators, lawyers, and community groups can submit their comments and suggestions by a specified deadline. This means that the final decision has not yet been made, and the text of the amendments may be adjusted depending on the course of the discussion and the strength of the arguments that will be heard from different sides.
