Studybugs - experiences and concerns

[Changingeveryth]

DD's school has just sent a notice saying they want us to start using an app called studybugs to report absences. I don't really want to do this.

For background, we don't post about our children online and have minimal online presence ourselves. They have highly identifiable names. DD also has reasons why as an adult they may not want details of their medical issues known. I am far more careful wth my children's data than my own just because they will have to live with the consequences of my choices.

I have read their privacy statement, they comply with GDPR but ultimately they are not government regulated like schools or the NHS and their third parties.

Is this just the way things are going and I need to suck it up? Will the fact that they are likely to post all sorts of strange things as teenagers mean I shouldn't be worrying about this? Are there any other risks that I haven't considered that I should think about?

I'm an attendance officer and we've just bought studybugs at my school. It saves me a lot of work manually inputting data into sims so it's good for that. Although it is online only the school can see any information about your child and even then it's just their name and reason for absence. It's not like the general public will have access to it!
We still use a voice message line as well so parents do have the option to use that if they prefer.

Maybe I'm too blasé about things like this, but it wouldn't bother me. If you're worried, do you have to give details on the app, or can you just say "ill" or something equally vague?

Also, if you were really against it, I can't imagine they can force you? If you were to call the school to say your DD was ill and not coming in, even if they insisted you used the app (which would be odd), you can always just say your phone is broken/computer isn't working/you've tried but app doesn't seem to be working right now etc. and leave it at that?