Personal details are linked to pupils' attainment and exam results over a lifetime school attendance.
Data from these systems are used to complete the termly school census returns provided to Local Authorities (regional) or directly to the Department for Education (national) three times a year.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency passes students' personal confidential data collected from universities to the Department for Education, where it is linked to individuals' school records in the National Pupil Database, expanding the lifetime record for millions of people that the Department retains indefinitely.
The full national code sets of all the items of data that can be collected on individual children can be downloaded from the Department for Education, listed in the common basic data set (CBDS), including health and SEND (special educational needs and disability).
A list of completed National Pupil Database Third Party Requests and those in the pipeline, are published on a quarterly retrospective basis.
Intra departmental transfers of data include to the Cabinet Office for preparation of Electoral Registration Transformation work in 2013, to match participant data in the National Citizen Service, and for use in the Troubled Families programme, as well as arms length bodies such as NHS Digital for a survey "What About Youth" mailed home to 300,000 15 year olds in 2014.
There were 15 rejected applications between March 2012 and September 2016, including a request "by mistake"[13] from the Ministry of Defence to target its messaging for recruitment marketing.
Further work by DfE compares self-reported salaries from the 2008/09 DLHE survey with earnings data from the LEO dataset coming directly from HMRC tax records.
In June 2018, the UK Parliament gave powers to the Office for Students through the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Cooperation and Information Sharing) Regulations 2018 (No.607)[17] to distribute personal data to thirteen third party organisations.
[22] An expansion of the Alternative Provision census starting in January 2018, added further sensitive data to the National Pupil Database including pregnancy, physical and mental health, and a code for young offender, as reason for transfer out of mainstream education.
[25] The sharing of identifying pupils’ personal data with third parties was put on hold in May 2018 for three months.
The Department for Education halted the distribution of personal information about school children in England, to restart it aligned with a Five Safes model, according to the Office for Statistics Regulation's recommendations.
It revealed that sexual orientation and religion are added to pupil records, for students from Higher Education.
This has raised concerns about the adequacy DfE's privacy notices and their accountability for the provision of such information to individuals regarding the processing of personal data for which they are ultimately data controllers.” Access is granted through an applications process to the Department for Education Education Division and internal Data Management Advisory Panel (DMAP), and is subject to requesters complying with terms and conditions imposed under contractual licence arrangements.
The DMAP Terms of Reference was first published in July 2016 by the Department for Education, but became obsolete after a 2018 panel reconfiguration.
The Department for Education application procedures for handling requests for data from the National Pupil Database, from March 2012, enabled interested parties to request extracts of data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) using forms available on the Department for Education website.
[28] Some of the history behind its collection, use and changes to legislation are outlined in a presentation given at an Open Data Institute ODI Friday lunchtime talk: Getting to grips with the National Pupil Database in 2013.
[30] As observed in 2014 by independent experts, "the central concern is that parents and pupils themselves are not sufficiently aware of the way the data is being shared with third parties.
"[31] "There appears to have been no concerted effort to bring the consultation or the NPD initiative to the attention of parents or pupils.
"[34] John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner, stated that:"No-one needs persuading that a database of pupils’ learning records being used to help gambling companies is unacceptable.
“We all have an absolute right to expect that our central government departments treat the data they hold on us with the utmost respect and security.