Abstract

The duties of confidentiality, secrecy or personal data protection are based on complex grounds. Generally, they may be dictated by both public and private interests. Of special legal significance are those regulations which are aimed at balancing competing interests – on the one hand protection of privacy and autonomy, and on the other gathering information, public life transparency or data processing for the sake of shaping certain central or local policy. The area of education is undoubtedly not partial to that conflict. It is difficult to diagnose teacher’s duty of confidentiality due to the fact that their duties as well as the principles of the functioning of the educational system are regulated by a number of laws, beginning with the Educational System Act of 7 September 1991, through the provisions of the Teachers’ Charter of 26 January 1982, regulations concerning local government entities, to the Educational Information System Act of 15 April 2012. On the other hand, those regulations hardly contain not only comprehensive solutions with respect to personal data protection and teachers’ duty of confidentiality, but in general any legal regulations which would allow for identifying a model of teacher’s duty of confidentiality. A separate and broad area is the duty of the entities responsible for educational institutions to duly care for collected information and the system of its processing for the needs of the educational law at the central, regional and local level.