Dear Pippa King

Thank you for your recent enquiry. A reply will be sent to you as soon as possible. For information; the departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses should be sent within 20 working days as you are requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Your correspondence has been allocated reference number 2015-0013829.

Thank you

Department for Education
Ministerial and Public Communications Division
Tel: 0370 000 2288

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Dear Ms King

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 16 March 2015. You requested the following information:

1) As per the above article please supply all correspondence between the Department of Education and Watchbot or any other company using this technology in schools.

2) Please advise if there were any minuted meetings where this issue was discussed, either internally or with other parties, and supply copies of those minutes.

3) In the article it states; "Last month it emerged children as young as four are among hundreds of youngsters being referred to specialist drug and alcohol treatment services in the UK." Please could the Department of Education advise the source of this information that children as young as four are being referred to drug and alcohol treatment services and provide a copy of the report.

4) Does the Department of Education know whether parents and teachers watching live feeds across IP (internet protocol) cameras set up in classrooms, corridors and playgrounds scheme had an effect in schools? If so please provide any analysis, reports or communications that detail any effects this technology has in schools.

5) Please advise if parents and teachers watching live feeds across IP (internet protocol) cameras set up in classrooms, corridors and playgrounds was in primary schools, secondary schools or other schools.

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Following a search of the Department’s paper and electronic records, I have established that the Department for Education received an email from Hillgrove PR, acting on behalf of Watchbot dated 8 May 2014. I enclose a copy of the email and the department’s reply which was emailed to Hillgrove PR on 14 May 2014.

You will notice the enclosure contains a small number of redactions. Where we have applied section 40(2) (personal data), this is because the information in question includes 3rd party personal data. Personal data is that which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data, or from that data and other information which is likely to be in, or to come into, the possession of the requestor. Disclosure of this information would contravene a number of the data protection principles in the Data Protection Act 1998, and would be regarded as ‘unfair’. By that, we mean the likely expectations of the data subject that his or her information would not be disclosed to others and the effect which disclosure would have on the data subject. Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption and is not subject to the public interest test.

I can confirm that no meetings were held to discuss the installation of CCTV cameras in schools to monitor pupils.

The department does not hold any information to confirm that children as young as four are being referred to specialist drug and alcohol treatment services. The Department of Health may be able to provide you with further information. A request for this information should be made in writing to:

Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries Unit
Department of Health
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2NS

The department does not hold any analysis, reports or communications that detail any effects of CCTV technology in schools, nor does it hold data on parents watching live feeds across IP cameras in primary, secondary schools or other schools.

The decision to install CCTV in schools is made locally. We expect these decisions to be carefully considered, and the reasons for so doing tightly defined.

The Home Office have published a code of practice intended to assist with these considerations. Whilst schools have not been placed under a duty to have regard to the code at the outset, it is there for all organisations that wish to install CCTV to use and be guided by in determining the purpose of that CCTV. The code is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy...

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose authorised by an exception in current copyright law. Documents (except photographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring permission for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.

Most documents produced by a government department or agency will be protected by Crown Copyright. Most Crown copyright information can be re-used under the Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...). For information about the OGL and about re-using Crown Copyright information please see The National Archives website -http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/infor... .

Copyright in other documents may rest with a third party. For information about obtaining permission from a third party see the Intellectual Property Office’s website at www.ipo.gov.uk<http://www.ipo.gov.uk/>.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar months of the date of this letter. Your complaint will be considered by an independent review panel, who were not involved in the original consideration of your request.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Baker

Web: https://www.education.gov.uk
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