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Recommendation on NEIS of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development [2003] KRNHRC 39 (12 May 2003)

The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development has been
preparing the National Education Information System (NEIS). Under the new
system, information on students and parents needed for providing guidance to
students, which has been collected and maintained by principals of schools, will
be collected into an integrated database of sixteen metropolitan and provincial
educational agencies and maintained as one integrated system through a high
speed communication network. The Commission examined the NEIS to
determine if it violates privacy and freedom; to ascertain the legal ground for
the NEIS and backdrop of the establishment of the NEIS; and to determine if
there could be human rights violations in personnel management of educational
government officials with regard to the 27 areas included in the NEIS, such as
school affairs, educational affairs, admittance and transfer of schools, and
problems related to health problems. The examination revealed problems as
follows:
1. There is little legal ground to integrate personal information collected and
prepared at a school into NEIS, nor any legal ground to provide such
information to other organizations. Even if there is legal ground, NEIS does
not satisfy the requirements for 1) the balance of the benefit and protection of
the law, 2) minimum damage 3) appropriateness of means 4) and
appropriateness of the methodology, despite the fact that the NEIS could
threaten the right to privacy.
2. The damage due to leakage of information in NEIS would be much more
serious than the leakage of information from the existing CS system.
3. The Personnel Management Card for educational government officials
indicates the name of the head of a family, whether military service is
completed or not, blood type, and assets owned. This kind of information is
meant to rationalize the personnel management system, but its inclusion is also
against the general principle of the protection of private information, which
requires limitations on collection and use of information.
4. The NEIS, a standardized quantified information system, may compromise
the independence, professionalism, and the autonomy of educational institutions
as guaranteed by Article 31 of the Constitution, ultimately reducing the quality
of education system wide. As a result, it may also infringe on the rights of
citizens to receive quality education.

On May 12, 2003, the Commission presented its opinions to the Ministry of
Education and Human Resources Development requiring that four of the 27
areas under the NEIS (school affairs, educational affairs, admittance and transfer
of school, and health) where the possibility of human rights violations are very
high be excluded from the NEIS. The `Regulations on the Recording of
Personnel Management of Educational Government Officials and Personal
Management Administration' should be revised so that 26 questions on the
Personnel Management Card that could be violations of privacy are excluded
from the NEIS. It also recommended that measures be taken to improve the
security system of CS so that human rights violations such as violations of
privacy due to leakage of personal information cannot occur.