Privacy, Security & Compliance

Last modified: September 9, 2025
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Estimated reading time: 3 min

9.1 Data Protection (GDPR/FADP/PIPEDA)

  • Roles. GCRI is controller for Academy records; approved service providers act as processors. Partners may be joint controllers for co-badged programs (documented per MoU/DPA).
  • Data classes. Identity (name/email), learning data (enrolments, attempts, grades), artifacts (dashboards, code, GIS outputs), telemetry (xAPI/Caliper), accessibility needs, billing (if applicable).
  • Special categories. Processed only when strictly required (e.g., accessibility) with explicit safeguards; health/biometric data avoided unless legally necessary for a course and governed by an ethics review.
  • Data subject rights. Access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability; channel published in Support.

9.2 Lawful Basis, Consent & Minimization

  • Bases. Contract (teaching/assessment), legitimate interests (security, anti-fraud, service improvement with safeguards), consent (marketing, research participation), legal obligation (tax/audit).
  • Minimization. Collect only fields needed for outcomes and verification. Use pseudonymized IDs in analytics.
  • Transparency. Layered privacy notices at enrolment and before any secondary use.
  • DPIA. Required for high-risk processing (e.g., proctoring, sensitive datasets, face/voice capture). Mitigations recorded before go-live.

9.3 Retention, Archiving & Portability

  • Default schedule.
    • Transcripts & credentials (codes/revs, assertions, status): kept indefinitely for verification unless erasure is lawfully exercised.
    • Assessment artifacts & grade books: 6 years (or longer if law requires).
    • Telemetry (xAPI/Caliper): 1-year hot / 5-year warm, then aggregate.
    • Access/proxy logs: 12 months (security), shorter where law requires.
  • Portability. Learners can export: OB3/VC badges, machine-readable transcript (JSON/CLR), artifact bundles (with provenance).
  • Erasure. Where granted, revokes public access, deletes PII, preserves minimal cryptographic proofs (hashes) that cannot be related back without PII.

9.4 Dual-Use & Safety Review (Cyber/AI/Health/EO)

  • Screening. Courses/labs flagged if they could materially enable misuse (adversarial ML, offensive cyber, sensitive bio/health, fine-grain EO).
  • Controls. Gating (eligibility checks), environment sandboxing, red-team review, down-scoping of sensitive details, export/licensing checks, and ethics sign-off.
  • Logging. All approvals and mitigations recorded; re-review on each MAJOR course rev.

9.5 Vendor & Processor Management (DPAs)

  • DPAs & SCCs. Execute Data Processing Agreements with annexed technical/organizational measures; use Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent for cross-border transfers.
  • Sub-processors. Public list with notice window; opt-out process where feasible.
  • Security assurance. Require independent attestations (e.g., ISO 27001/SOC 2), pen-test summaries, and incident SLAs.
  • Data residency. Honor regional storage commitments where contractually required.

9.6 Key Rotation & Credential Security

  • Issuer identity. did:web:nexus.gcri.org with KMS/HSM-backed keys; 12-month rotation or on incident.
  • Storage. Encryption at rest (server-side) and in transit (TLS 1.2+); least-privilege access; MFA for staff; admin actions recorded.
  • On-chain policy. Hash-only anchoring of assertions/status; no PII on public ledgers.
  • Content integrity. Signed packages for assessments/labs; checksum verification for artifacts; tamper-evident logs.

9.7 Incident Response & Notification

  • Runbook. Detect → contain → eradicate → recover → post-mortem with owner + timeline.
  • Breach notification. Regulators without undue delay and, where feasible, ≤72h after awareness (GDPR-aligned). Affected users notified when high risk is likely.
  • Severities. P1 (credential/signing compromise, large-scale PII), P2 (localized data exposure), P3 (availability only).
  • Exercises. Tabletop at least annually; lessons learned drive control updates.

9.8 Legal Holds, Discovery & Audit Trails

  • Holds. Freeze relevant data/archives on counsel instruction; suspend deletion jobs.
  • Audit trails. Immutable logs (append-only) for issuance, revocation, grade changes, and admin access.
  • Chain of custody. Checksums for artifacts; timestamped status changes; reproducible exports on request.

9.9 Terms of Use, Licenses & SPDX

  • Terms. Acceptable Use (no cheating, abuse, or circumvention), content & IP policy, research ethics, export control caveats.
  • Licensing. Course materials under stated license; learner artifacts remain the learner’s IP with a non-exclusive license to store and verify. All licenses tagged with SPDX identifiers.
  • Third-party data. Respect upstream licenses; display attribution; restrict redistribution if required.
  • Takedowns. Clear notice-and-action workflow for alleged infringement or rights violations.

9.10 Ethics Board & Rights Safeguards

  • Ethics Board. Independent advisors + internal leads; reviews DPIAs, dual-use proposals, sensitive dataset use, and research protocols.
  • Rights by design. Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA), non-discrimination, explainability of automated decisions affecting grades/eligibility, human appeal path.
  • Children/minors. No enrolment under local age of digital consent without verified guardian consent.
  • Complaints & appeals. Published channel; tracked SLAs; escalation to Academic Council where unresolved.

Acceptance Checklist (Privacy, Security & Compliance)

  • Role mapping (controller/processor/joint) documented; privacy notices published.
  • Lawful basis recorded for each processing purpose; DPIA completed for high-risk features.
  • Retention schedule enforced; exports (OB3/VC/CLR) available to learners.
  • Dual-use review completed for flagged courses; mitigations active.
  • DPAs/SCCs signed; sub-processor registry and change notices in place.
  • Keys rotated per policy; on-chain anchoring uses hash-only proofs.
  • Incident runbook tested; regulator/user notification templates ready.
  • Legal hold and immutable audit trails operational.
  • Terms/AUP and SPDX licensing visible on course/artifact pages.
  • Ethics Board charter active; accessibility, fairness, and appeal mechanisms verified.
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