is your website compliant?
Websites are an important information and brand building tool.
It's quite easy to launch a website – you might have the expertise
in house to do it, but failing that, you can outsource the work to
a web design company. As a result, most operators have a web
presence in some shape or form. However do you know whether your
website is legally compliant?
Here are a few matters to consider:
- If you have asked a third party to build a website for you,
ensure that you have a written contract in place relating to the
design, build, maintenance, and hosting of the site as well as
registration and ownership of the domain name. The obligations of
the third party need to be set out clearly.
- Just because you commission the development of a website does
not mean you own the copyright to it. Make sure your agreement
transfers to you the ownership of copyright in the site.
- You will need provisions to ensure that someone else can host
and amend the site if you end your arrangement with the original
designer.
- Make sure that you own the copyright in any photographs and
prose to be included on your website or, if you don’t, that you
have written permission to use them.
- Don't post, or let anyone else post, anything on the pages of
your website that you are not happy for the whole world to see. Be
careful that any postings are not libellous or in breach of someone
else's copyright. You could be liable.
- Consider whether you need separate password protected pages
which can only be accessed by parents.
- Online notice boards and blogs, can be problematic. Your
website should include appropriate policies on how these pages may
be used. You may have to monitor them and reserve the right to
control what is posted.
- The Data Protection Act imposes obligations on any organisation
collecting and using personal data. If you collect data (like names
and e-mail addresses) of visitors to the site make sure that you
are clear, on your website, of the purposes for which the data is
being collected and get appropriate consent to that use. If you are
collecting data a suitable privacy policy gives comfort to
users.
- The Disability Discrimination Act and related legislation
impose obligations to ensure that disabled persons are not unfairly
discriminated against when attempting to access online information.
Your site must comply with those requirements.
- Statements about your setting, and particularly its
attainments, must be accurate.
points to note
- The public pages of your website are an online prospectus. A
prospective parent or employee will form an opinion of your setting
within a few seconds of clicking through your pages.
- Keep your website pages up to date. Out of date content is, at
best, irritating and, at worst, misleading.
