Blogs Retention Policy

Read here our policy on retention of blogs within blogs.ed.ac.uk.

Retention 

1. Blogs administered by staff members or postgraduate research (PGR) students will be retained in perpetuity.  

2. The Service will archive a course blog administered or authored solely by taught students when the last student administrator or author leaves their programme of study.  Content within the blog that belongs to staff and other students, including those who have previously left their programme of study, will be retained until the time it is archived.

3. A staff member or student who leaves the University will no longer be able to modify their blogs or restricted-access content through the blogging service.   

4. Former staff and former students may however request erasure of their own blog content or personal data by contacting the IS Helpline.

Archival Period and Deletion

1. The Service will retain archived blogs for 12 months. 

2. An administrator for an archived blog may request its restoration during the archival period by contacting the IS Helpline.

3. The Service will otherwise permanently delete the blog at the end of the archival period. 

Student Consent 

1. A School or lecturer may sometimes wish to retain a taught student blog on the Service permanently, for instance as an example of good practice.  

2. Where student blog content is to be retained after a student's departure, the member of staff responsible must ensure there is a record of each student's consent to retain their intellectual property.  If the blog is administered solely by taught students, the students must add a member of staff as administrator to ensure the blog is not archived.

3. Information Services will provide advice and guidance in relation to securing student consent. 

Right to Erasure

1. The University processes personal data within the blogging service in pursuit of its legitimate interests in providing the service.
2. An individual has the right to have their personal data erased if they object to the processing of their data and the University has no overriding legitimate interests in continuing to processing the data. [1]  
3. Where an objection to processing is received, the University will consider the balance of interests on a case-by-case basis.
4. Where the interests of the individual outweigh the University's interests, the University will either remove the blog entirely or modify the published blog by de-identifying the individual.
5. Where the entire blog is to be removed, it will first be archived for a short period not exceeding 10 working days before permanent deletion.

[1] https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/