Personal data protection at the University: habits, attitudes and knowledge of the teaching staff.

Abstract

The protection of personal data is a fundamental right for which we all have a responsibility. It is the obligation of all institutions, including universities, to comply with and conform to the requirements of data protection regulations. At present, due to a lack of research, there is a great lack of knowledge about the impact of data protection regulations in higher education. This study initiates a line of work that aims to find out how data protection is integrated in the field of university teaching. This research investigates the habits, attitudes and degree of knowledge of university teaching staff in relation to data protection. An ad hoc questionnaire was designed and implemented and answered by 391 teachers at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The results show that there is a need to improve the habits of university teaching staff in specific actions that can lead to vulnerabilities in relation to data protection. There is a good attitude among teaching staff, but statistically significant differences are revealed in terms of the degree of knowledge on this subject depending on the area to which the lecturer belongs. The need to guide the actions linked to the training of university teaching staff in data protection matters and to design informative campaigns to increase awareness and foster attitudes more oriented towards data protection is evident. Only in this way will we make progress in achieving a democratically strengthened teaching staff.