ACADEMIA Letters

Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during

online teaching and learning
Vincent Icheku, London South Bank University

Abstract
On 30 January 2020 following the recommendations of the Emergency Committee, the WHO
Director General declared that the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic that constitutes a Public
Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Since then, there has been forced global
shutdown of several activities. The close of universities because of the outbreak meant that lots
of students must now learn online, culminating in a large amount of personal data being shared
over the internet. UNESCO recently alerted the world to the hidden risks of personal data
security. This author’s involvement in complex discourses and multiple online interactions
with students prompted the insightfully interest in carrying out this study. The purpose of the
study, therefore, is to examine the best way of ensuring that personal or sensitive data risks
can be mitigated during online teaching.
The study used literature review’s approach to collect data from secondary sources i.e.
Medical Literature Online (MEDLINE), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO)’s website, World Health Organisation’s (WHO), Public Health Eng-
land (PHE) websites and Online Journal articles through google search.
The study found that how to protect the personal data and privacy in the online learning
space is the major challenge confronting students, teachers, and their institutions today.
In conclusion, the review argues that data protection risks can be mitigated by carefully
reviewing the platform’s privacy settings and checking that online learning platforms users
are complaint. The review recommends that educational institutions should ensure their on-

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.

1
line platforms are compliant with the privacy laws, by not collecting more personal data than
is necessary and is only using the personal data for the purposes agreed upon.

Keyword: COVID-19, Lockdown, Outbreak, Private Laws, data security, Online teaching-
learning, Pandemic

Introduction
The whole educational activities from primary to high level has been shut down during the
lockdown amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak not only in the United
Kingdom (UK) but across the globe. The successfully forced global shutdown of educational
institutions has resulted in the migration to online classes. In other words, the online education
has forced a pedagogical shift from traditional face to face classrooms to online platforms. A
study by Lokanath et. al., (2020) citing Lederman (2020) states that due to the COVID-19
crisis teachers and students both find themselves in the situation where they felt compelled to
embrace the digital academic experience as the new norms.
One study reporting the findings from a survey of n = 1148 academics working in universi-
ties in the UK reports an abundance of what the researcher called ‘afflictions’ exacted upon the
role of educators derived from the rapid transition to online provision and early ‘entry-level’
use of digital pedagogies. The study found that the online migration engendered significant
dysfunctionality and disturbance to pedagogical roles of the educators their personal lives.
The study added that the online migration signposts as a major challenge for student recruit-
ment, market sustainability, an academic labour-market, and local economies (Watermeier, et
al., 2020).
In another study, Ribeiro (2020), found that digital transformation of instructional delivery
came with several logistical challenges and attitudinal modifications. However, many of these
studies conducted over online teaching and learning demonstrated the challenges of the new
norms, no such studies places emphasis on the challenge pose by the risks of personal data
security inherent in an online teaching. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine how best to
ensure that personal or sensitive data risks can be mitigated during online teaching.

Study Method
The study used literature review’s approach to collect data from secondary sources. The
overall goal of this method is to identify any challenges pose by the risks of personal data

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.

2
security and examine how best to ensure that personal or sensitive data risks can be miti-
gated during any online teaching. The literature for this review was gathered through searches
on the Google Scholar, Google Chrome, Medical Literature Online (MEDLINE). The Pub-
lic Health England (PHE), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-
tion (UNESCO)’s website, and the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) websites were also
searched using the keywords COVID-19, Lockdown, Outbreak, data security, online teaching-
learning and pandemic.

Analysis and discussion of findings

To meet this study’s aim, this author reviewed literature on how personal or sensitive data
risks can be mitigated during online teaching. The following three themes emerged from the
analysis of the literature reviewed for this study:

Online Learning Reliant on Technology

Adedoyin and Soykan (2020) state that online learning in its entirety is reliant on technologi-
cal devices and internet. The major challenge, therefore, is that teachers and students with bad
or no internet connections are liable to be denied access to online leaning. In addition, the de-
pendency of online learning on technological equipment and the provision of the equipment
pose a big challenge for teachers, and students. For example, online teachers and students
generate a enormous amount of data as a result of their learning activities. In a typical on-
line class, members access online materials, upload, and download files, and communicate
with other class members. These activities leave behind a trail of digital data, of which only
a portion is visible to the class participants. The visible data, such as typed words and up-
loaded documents, are intentionally shared. The largely unseen data, such as digital records
of each user’s action on a web site, may be logged in a database without the user’s knowledge
or awareness. Further complicating matters, online teachers and students operate in an ever-
changing technological landscape. The tools that they use constantly change, culminating in a
steady influx of new tools and features as well as new uses for familiar tools. Along with these
tools and features often come new terms of service, as well as the possibility of new privacy
and security risks. Keeping up with these changes and learning how to manage data privacy,
online comfort and safety, and digital identities call for urgent action (Dennen, 2015).
Gillett-Swan (2020) citing Orlando and Attard (2015) stated that online teaching involving
technology is not a one size fits all approach as it depends on the types of technology in use
at the time and the curriculum content being taught. This means that the incorporation of

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.

3
technology into teaching provides additional factors for consideration in terms of teaching
pedagogy and construction of learning experiences. However, online privacy concerns and
emergent solutions in online learning contexts where technology is the dominant learning tool
should not be taken for granted. The ability of technologies to enhance learning is mutually
and inextricably linked to online data security. There is need to consider issues of legal rights,
raised by emerging educational technologies, and manners by which institutions, teachers and
learners might mitigate both security risks and the level of personal discomfort that accompany
these risks (Dennen, 2015).

Risks of personal data security

On 5th April 2020 UNESCO published a report, which shows that 1.59 billion students ac-
counting for 91.3 per cent of the world’s student population could not go back to school due
to the COVID-19 outbreak. The close of universities because of the outbreak meant that lots
of students must learn online, culminating in a large amount of personal data being shared
online. UNESCO report alerted the world to the hidden risks of personal data security when
it states that personal data and privacy protection have never been so urgent like today, and it
has become the biggest challenges we are confronting. Thus, how to protect the personal data
and privacy in online learning is becoming an important issue for students, teachers, and their
institutions (UNESCO, 2020).
The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) brought about changes in data
protection and privacy law that regulate how organisations including universities should col-
lect, processes, stores and transfers personal data. Online educational learning platforms in-
variably collect a variety of personal data to connect the platform users. GDPR requires all
organisations, need to be mindful of data protection and comply with relevant local laws and
contract provisions. Organisations also must have policies and structures to record and evi-
dence the ways that institutions comply with the law.
Despite the above requirement, Anderson and Simpson (2007) found that teaching at a
distance raises ethical issues particular to the distance context. They argued that when dis-
tance teaching is also online teaching, the situation is even more complex. Teaching and
learning online involve complex discourses and multiple relationships; they cross physical,
cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Data of various kinds are automatically recorded in a
relatively permanent form, which highlight ethical issues related to matters of equity and di-
versity, surveillance and consent, identity, and confidentiality. These call for effective online
personal data and privacy protection in accordance with privacy laws.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.

4
Calls online personal data and privacy protection
Orchison and Rigg (2020) suggest that organisations should ensure that the technology plat-
forms are compliant with the privacy laws by not collecting more personal data than is nec-
essary and is only using that personal data for the purposes agreed upon. In addition, the
organisations should carry out a risk assessment to weigh up the risks and mitigate any harm
associated with carrying out live-streaming and/or recording online sessions. They claimed
that a risk assessment can help institutions to weigh up and mitigate different risks. For exam-
ple, the risk of inappropriate or harmful material being shared on an online platform can be
reduced when institutions use platforms that enable them to pre-approve and ban participants
from sessions.
The risks of live streaming a session might include, for example, the inadvertent disclosure
of confidential or inappropriate information. This can be mitigated by educating students,
their families, and staff about the location of meetings and general house-keeping rules for
using online platforms. For example: advising them to have a bland background to meetings
so that no additional information can be collected about their location; ensuring there is no
personal or sensitive data visible during the meeting and ensuring that cameras are disabled
when the meeting has concluded. Finally, other safeguarding and data protection risks can
be mitigated by carefully reviewing the platform’s privacy settings and checking that online
learning platforms are of good standard (Orchison and Rigg, 2020).

Conclusion and recommendations

This review found that transformation to online teaching and learning poses the risks of per-
sonal data security. Thus, how to protect the personal data and privacy in the online learning
space has now become the major challenge confronting students, teachers, and their institu-
tions today. The review also found that data protection risks can be mitigated by carefully
reviewing the online platforms’ privacy settings and checking that online learning platforms
users are complaint. The review recommends that educational institutions should ensure their
online platforms are compliant with the privacy laws, by not collecting more personal data
than is necessary and is only using the personal data for the purposes agreed upon.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.

5
References
Adedoyin, O. B. and Soykan, E.(2020) Covid-19 pandemic and online learning: the chal-
lenges and opportunities, Taylor and Francis Online Journal, https://www.tandfonline.
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Dennen, V. P (2015) TECHNOLOGY TRANSIENCE AND LEARNER DATA Shifting No-

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Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.

6
WHO (2020) COVID-19 Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) Global
research and innovation forum, https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/covid-19-public-
health-emergency-of-international-concern-(pheic)-global-research-and-innovation-forum

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Vincent Icheku, ichekuv@lsbu.ac.uk

Citation: Icheku, V. (2021). Challenges of protecting personal data and privacy during online teaching and
learning. Academia Letters, Article 3083. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3083.