Massive privacy breach - is it an employment matter or something else?

[teddy2020]

Hello fellow members.

Sadly, I was (wrongfully) the subject of a serious police investigation. I was a PE teacher and well respected within the local community. I played football with the local dads and I coached 2 local kids soccer teams in my spare time. I can't go too far into the nature of the accusations but obviously while under investigation I had to leave my job etc. Fortunately for me the real perpetrator was caught and charged and I was relieved for it finally to be over.

My employers at the time said they were handling everything in the strictest of confidence and gave me a very short listed of the only staff members who would be informed on a need to know basis, i.e the head teacher and the safeguarding officer.

There is a slight crossover between the school staff and the volunteers who run the football side of things - and what the school don't know is that my solicitor is also one of the other football coaches. (I knew I had done nothing wrong so I had no hesitation in hiring somebody I know) My solicitor has now told me that there is a rumour about me circulating around the football camp. After a little further digging it seems that some members of school staff (who were not supposed to know) have been attending football and other after school classes and saying, "remember Mr X, well do you know he left because he was getting done for XYZ".... (the thing is, because they are not officially supposed to know, they also have not been told that it wasn't actually me - i.e. that somebody else was charged, so they are still spreading the same rumour)

I don't want to look over my shoulder forever. And I also don't want to be in the position where I have to announce to everybody I know that I was under investigation for this kind of thing. People think "no smoke without fire", or they don't realise that somebody else was actually caught.

My question is, are the other employees breaking the schools confidentiality policy or are they breaking my right to privacy? Or is my former employer somehow negligible for not keeping it private? Or are they under no obligation at all? What can I do to make it stop?

[theberenger]

I'm sure others with more knowledge will come along later, but my initial thoughts are this:

You should certainly make a complaint to the school, to the head teacher, outlining the rumours your solicitor has informed you about, their nature and their source from within the staff team. I may be wrong, but my suspicion is that the head teacher would be very nearly equally as alarmed as you are and will not wish for one moment for these rumours to spread within the wider community in relation to their school.

In terms of doing anything 'legal' about it, I suspect you would need to prove the source of the rumours was in fact a member of the staff team. Of course, this is a hard thing to do, rumours by their very nature are difficult to identify the source of, and to complicate matters further, the people mentioning it now may not be original source.

That's why I think going directly to the head teacher and reminding them that 'loose lips sink ships' is potentially true in this scenario too. I would expect a strongly-worded conversation to take place between the head and those who originally knew and opened their mouths. I would also anticipate that you'd want to be very clear with the head teacher that in fact you have been exonerated, and a different individual has been rightly caught and charged.

The other option you've got I suppose, if you are able to identify those now spreading the rumour, is to have your solicitor issue cease and desist letters. Most people would find something like that scary enough to check themselves, although that potentially puts your solicitor in a tricky situation, given he's now in contact with some of these people pseudo-socially.

What a desperate shame though that you're unable to return to your original workplace. What does your future look like in that regard?

[ULA]

The school had assured you that "they were handling everything in the strictest of confidence" and they have a responsibilty to ensure that this happened. Any person in the school who was aware of the situation which should have been on a "need to know" basis only should have been informed of the confidential nature of the information.

Yes the suggestion to write to the head teacher about the situation is a good one and if you have the information then you may want to identify the members of staff who you believe to be involved. From there it would be an internal matter for the head teacher to investigate and take whatever possible disciplinary action they believe to be appropriate.

In terms of other actions you may want to consider a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in regard to the way in which the school has handled your personal sensitive data.