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My mum is currently doing a course at a local college and in May went into the library to check out a book. An incident occurred between the librarian and a small group of students that ended with security being called. No one was attacked or injured but my mother was asked to give a statement about what she had witnessed and it was not favourable for the librarian as she had started the confrontation initially anyway and was rude and aggressive.
On Monday mum received an email, to her private email account not her college one, asking if she recalled what had happened and that the college was investigating and if they had contacted mum for her opinions/thoughts on the incident. Mum replied and said she hadn't been contacted and if she needed to speak to her about it she could call her, mum then gave her phone number.
Fast forward to today, no phone calls but mum received another email apologising about not phoning her but explained that she had been ill with all the stress the incident and the subsequent suspension from work had caused. Mum then realised that it was the librarian herself that had contacted her. The librarian's email isn't a college email address it is from Gmail, however, she had signed the inital email with her name, job title, and name of the college, mum just didn't tweak that it was from her. She asked mum to email her what she could remember of the incident.
Obviously mum has no intention of emailing her back. My question is, is this a breach of her privacy/data protection laws? Surely she shouldn't be able to access mums information to obtain her private email address and then email her about something that she is being investigated for/while she is suspended. Mum didn't see her while she was giving her statement as she had gone off with another security guard. Mum got her books checked out by another librarian and left so we are not entirely sure how she got the email in the first place.
We are just wondering what should are next steps be, we have notified the college but should we also put in a complaint with ICO? What are the college legally obligated to do about this?
Thanks
On Monday mum received an email, to her private email account not her college one, asking if she recalled what had happened and that the college was investigating and if they had contacted mum for her opinions/thoughts on the incident. Mum replied and said she hadn't been contacted and if she needed to speak to her about it she could call her, mum then gave her phone number.
Fast forward to today, no phone calls but mum received another email apologising about not phoning her but explained that she had been ill with all the stress the incident and the subsequent suspension from work had caused. Mum then realised that it was the librarian herself that had contacted her. The librarian's email isn't a college email address it is from Gmail, however, she had signed the inital email with her name, job title, and name of the college, mum just didn't tweak that it was from her. She asked mum to email her what she could remember of the incident.
Obviously mum has no intention of emailing her back. My question is, is this a breach of her privacy/data protection laws? Surely she shouldn't be able to access mums information to obtain her private email address and then email her about something that she is being investigated for/while she is suspended. Mum didn't see her while she was giving her statement as she had gone off with another security guard. Mum got her books checked out by another librarian and left so we are not entirely sure how she got the email in the first place.
We are just wondering what should are next steps be, we have notified the college but should we also put in a complaint with ICO? What are the college legally obligated to do about this?
Thanks