High school fined over childs locker death - HSE pleads for urgent review of equipment on school premises

A secondary school in Chelmsford has been fined £16,700 and ordered to pay costs of £12,000 following an accident that saw an unsecured locker unit fall and fatally injure a young boy.

Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard that on 23 May 2019, nine-year-old Leo Latifi had been attending an after-school swimming lesson at the sports centre of Great Baddow High School in Chelmsford, Essex.

Leo and another young child had been waiting in the boy’s changing room for their lesson to start. However, inside the changing room, an installation of school lockers, one with its door missing, offered an improvised climbing frame for the children.

As they climbed the front of the locker unit, it toppled forward, falling on Leo, who sustained a fatal head injury. The other child managed to jump clear.

The ICO has announced this week that it has fined the charity Mermaids £25,000 for failing to keep the personal data of its users secure.

Mermaids is a charity which originated as a parents’ support group for parents whose children were experiencing gender non-conformity.  In August 2016, the charity set up an email group.  Unfortunately, restricted access settings were not applied to the email group and Mermaids were notified by a service user that the emails were publicly available online.

The incident meant that the personal data of a large number of children and vulnerable individuals was available online.  In addition, some of that information was classified as special category data.  Once the breach was identified, an investigation was commenced and it was found that if the appropriate security access settings had been applied, then access would have been restricted to approved members of the group only and it would not have been possible for third parties to gain unauthorised access online.  The investigation established that the default setting for security and privacy on the internet-based email service provided, "Group listed in directory, publicly viewable messages," which was an insecure and inappropriate setting.  Alternative settings available to users of the email service were, "Group not listed in directory, publicly viewable messages,", "Group listed in directory, private messages," and, "Group not listed in directory, private messages," which, if selected, may have provided more appropriately secure settings.

Impact of social media backlash for employers

On going to bed disappointed on Sunday night, many no doubt expected they would be getting up on Monday morning to an influx of press articles and social media posts centred around a technical critique of the football skills on display in the final along side messages of support for the players.  Few probably expected to be faced with such a concerning level of racially motivated criticism, leading to the press being dominated not by the loss itself, but the racist backlash against a number of team members. 

Travel and Self-Isolation -How this will Affect Schools?

The rules around international travel and restrictions are constantly changing, with returning to the UK from some countries currently at the time of writing this article, legally requiring a 10 day quarantine upon return to the UK.

In the education sector, maintaining continuity of education for children and minismising the disruption for children is paramount during this everchanging pandemic. The easing of restrictions and the government 'road map' means that the government are continuously reviewing the rules on travel with various measures being put in place for international travel.

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Enjoy your Summer!

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