Joel Fierstone

I am an experienced Data Protection assistant, having worked in both education and private practice settings. I am hard-working, conscientious and resilient; able to focus and work independently and with others. In my recent compliance and administrative roles, I displayed transferable skills such as high motivation, organisation, good time management, enthusiastic team player as well as assisting with project delivery. Graduated from a Russel Group University with a 2:1 in Politics.

Since graduating from university, I have gained experience in the area of data protection and information governance through two roles. One working for the compliance team of a private company working closely with the data protection officer, the other, my current role, working as a Data Protection Assistant at a British university as part of the Information Governance Team. I have been a key member of a project team tasked with writing and reviewing data protection impact assessments covering student and staff data, alumni relations, student accommodation records and complaints procedures. 

Both of these roles have required me to proactively set up meetings with senior staff, taking time to effectively communicate project updates and suggested solutions to procedure changes where required. This is while having excellent attention to detail and being able to assess the effectiveness of policies and procedures. I have to work independently while also being a keen team player. Furthermore, this role enables me to act methodically, recording information in a shared team tracker showing summaries of what has been completed and what is still being worked on. 

Maintaining confidentiality is critical to my roles both for personal information held in records and for commercially sensitive and other restricted information. This means that sensitive or personal information cannot be shared or made accessible to those not expressly permitted to do so. For example, documentation stored on SharePoint, sharing settings must be set to named individuals and cannot be downloaded or accessed by unauthorised individuals or groups. It is not sufficient to limit access to those who have “business email addresses” as this would include students which would not be appropriate. Additionally, universities have contracts in place and bid for work, so it is important when handling data that could be prejudicial to the university's commercial interests that this is dealt with carefully. 

These roles have also given me compliance experience. This has included answering Freedom of Information Enquiries and internal reviews, Subject Access Requests, preparatory work for an ISO audit for 27001, Data Protection Impact Assessments as well as SharePoint migration and I have been involved in the investigation into a data breach. I had to check policies to investigate how the breach may have come about and how procedures could be updated to prevent further incidents such as limiting access to different systems. Suggestions made included setting up different instances of Microsoft for staff and students.  

Project work has meant I have used databases, identified key documentation and policies such as the one for Home Working and Bring Your Device, using my sound judgement to assess the policy suitability from a data protection point of view and providing suggestions for improvements to managers. While in my previous data protection role I was also involved with preparing for information security audits, which required a keen eye for detail to be able to assess whether we met the standard. This role also included using a CRM to act on information rights requests for customers.  

To be able to balance my responsibilities in these different areas I have to be able to display excellent personal organisational and time management skills and be able to react to changing priorities. This means that I can prioritise tasks depending on their deadlines and the amount of work necessary for each task. For example, while completing a DPIA that covered a change to the processing of health and safety data I also had to respond to a complex FOI request. This meant that I had to arrange several meetings with different departmental managers for the FOI request, taking notes and arranging follow-up meetings with different members of their teams. This was all while writing a DPIA which was becoming time sensitive. This was because the Health Safety team needed to implement the new system before the beginning of the new academic year. This required the process to be reviewed and recommendations made with enough time to make the necessary changes. I work in a small team which means I need to plan my time carefully and work independently with few options for delegating tasks to others. Despite this, I still need to be a team player updating others on task progress, and helping others with complex and multiple tasks and requests.  

 I also needed to be flexible and consider other colleagues’ workloads. When I was at university, I showed adaptability by taking over a team project role when the team leader realised, they had too many deadlines to fulfil the team leader role for our particular project, to which I was able to step into the role at short notice.  

I have excellent written and oral communication skills, writing meeting notes, management briefings, project reports and writing responses to FOIs and Subject Access Requests. 

I keep up to date with developments in information governance and other related areas by attending training, such as one on Public Interest Tests and reading articles on the ICO website. 

I have proven IT skills including a good working knowledge of Microsoft products including Word, Excel, SharePoint and Teams. I use Excel, particularly as a project tracker tool.  

My work as a food supervisor has given me the experience of working within a team-based environment that is fast-paced with multiple, complex issues to keep track of. This included health and safety risk factors, allocation of work to other kitchen staff and keeping the event on time. It was vital that I be able to work under pressure and adapt to changing circumstances and tight deadlines, keeping legal and regulatory framework while working both independently and collaboratively as an enthusiastic team player. 

During my previous work with Haringey Council, I have enhanced my transferable skills including reliability, motivated independent working, organisation skills as well as time management. My tasks focused on organising and supporting events in the form of a conference. This includes contacting potential venues, and speakers as well as planning the events programme and budgeting the costs for the event. Moreover, experience I have had in managing case delivery includes speaking to caseworkers in adult health and social care to understand how cases are progressed. This included understanding the process of the case which involves pre-appointment checks, case progression and investigation.

Queen Mary University, London, BA Political Studies Honours                               September 2019- July 2022 

Achieved 2:1

Modules have included, British Politics, Political Theory and Modernity, Introduction to Economics and Business Management; increasing my understanding of the socio-political environment of UK and beyond