On Saturday, the newspaper Politiken published the news that schoolchildren in Denmark are no longer allowed to use Google’s Chromebooks, as a decision from the Data Inspectorate concerning Elsinore was said to apply generally to the whole country. The motive is the risk that the children’s personal data will go astray.
Google’s computers and programs are used by schools in about every other Danish municipality and the news was met with concern by school leaders around the country.
But on Sunday, Allan Frank, a lawyer at the Data Inspectorate, told the newspaper Berlingske that the ban on handling personal data when using the Chromebook and the Workspace software package only applies to the municipality of Elsinore. The authority has not taken a position on whether other municipalities also violate the EU Data Regulation (GDPR) when using Chroomebook.
Other municipalities are now being called upon to take measures to ensure that they do not violate the GDPR, but this is not a general ban, according to Frank.