BAGUIO CITY – The National Privacy Commission will still allow the management of Pines City Colleges (PCC), a local medical school, to implement its school policy mandating female students enrolling in clinical and laboratory subjects to undergo pregnancy test before being accepted in the said subject pending the conduct of a thorough investigation on the possible breach of the policy to data processing and protection.
Lawyer Francis Euston R. Acero, chief of the National Privacy Commission’s complaints and investigation division, said the investigating team is still in the process of determining the legitimacy of the purpose of the extraction of data and information from the female students through the mandatory pregnancy test for those enrolling in clinical subjects to ascertain whether or not the issuance of stop processing order is warranted that will lead to the temporary suspension of the implementation of the said policy.
PCC Vice for Administration Regina Pratts and other school officials appeared before members of the National Privacy Commission’s investigating team Wednesday and presented that the mandatory pregnancy test for female students enrolling in clinical and laboratory subjects is a long-time policy and the extraction of information is pursuant to established laws, rules and regulations..
“We are adhering to a methodology in the conduct of the investigation that is why we are dealing with all the issues one at a time so as not to confuse everyone on the matter,” Acero stressed.
He explained that PCC initially complied with some of the 5-step conditions in data processing and protection, particularly the appointment of a data privacy and protection officer, while the Commission is looking into other compliance of the educational institution in the conduct of data privacy and protection assessment, the crafting of data privacy and protection policies and programs, the implementation of the said programs and policies and the review and revision of the policies to conform with the tenets of data privacy and protection which are transparency, legitimacy of purpose and proportionality of the legitimacy of purpose.
According to him, there is no timeframe adopted by the investigators in the investigation because of the need to consider numerous aspects of the issue aside from supervening events that may transpire in the course of the process.
Acero admitted that the case of PCC on data privacy and protection on the mandatory conduct of pregnancy test for female students enrolling in clinical and laboratory subjects is the first to be encountered by the Commission although most of the breaches on data privacy and protection being recorded by the Commission is from the education sector which is the second highest among all sectors of the society.
He asserted it is still difficult to conclude whether or not PCC administration committed breaches in data protection and privacy in the implementation of the school policy that is why the Commission needs more time to gather sufficient pieces of evidence that will warrant the issuance of a stop processing order beneficial to the greater interest of the students who are enrolled in the private education institution.
By HENT
Banner photo by: Armando M. Bolislis
