Pupil data: Off-register Back Office use by Home Office in Q1 2017

The request was refused by Department for Education.

Dear Department for Education,
with reference to any pupil data ever collected via the School Census and regardless of where it is stored or the name of the database:

a) Please provide a copy of each the original approved monthly data request application forms from the Home Office received by the DfE in January 2017, February 2017 and March 2017.

b) Please confirm:
i) the number of individuals for which requests were made from the Home Office, in each month January 2017, February 2017 and March 2017 (Q1) and
ii) the number of individuals on which data was returned for each.

c) Please provide the field names used in the algorithm(s) used to run any of these data requests (if easier please provide a copy).

d) Please provide the field names returned to the Home Office in any of these data requests.

e) Please provide a copy of any original MOUs between the DfE and the Home Office and/or Cabinet Office in effect on today's date (April 2, 2017) as regards any interaction between requests for information and data or information returned from any pupil data collected.

f) Please provide the name of the database used to store the nationality data collected in the school census since October 2016, as it is known by at the DfE.

g) With reference to (f), please provide a copy of a machine generated audit trail log report of each and every use of that database effective March 31, 2017. It should show information on all operations and queries run such as but not exclusively, chronological dates and times of use, include all human and machine (manual, ad hoc and scheduled) interactions, field name level returns.

h) Please confirm if and when the Home Office (and police) volume of use will be published on a regular basis in the Third Party Data releases https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio... or any other transparent disclosure mechanism.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely,
Jen Persson

ACCOUNT, Unmonitored, Department for Education

Dear Ms Persson

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 2017-0019453.

Thank you

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

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Dear Department for Education,

ref: FOI allocated reference number 2017-0019453

please can you let me know why the response to this request is delayed and when you expect to reply? By law, the Department for Education should have responded by 3 May 2017.

Thank you.
Sincerely,

Jen Persson

ACCOUNT, Unmonitored, Department for Education

6 Attachments

Dear Ms Persson,

 

Ref: 2017-0019453

 

Thank you for your freedom of information request, which was received on
3^rd April 2017.

 

You requested:

With reference to any pupil data ever collected via the School Census and
regardless of where it is stored or the name of the database:

 

a) Please provide a copy of each the original approved monthly data
request application forms from the Home Office received by the DfE in
January 2017, February 2017 and March 2017.

 

b) Please confirm:

i) the number of individuals for which requests were made from the Home
Office, in each month January 2017, February 2017 and March 2017 (Q1) and

ii) the number of individuals on which data was returned for each.

 

c) Please provide the field names used in the algorithm(s) used to run any
of these data requests (if easier please provide a copy).

 

d) Please provide the field names returned to the Home Office in any of
these data requests.

 

e) Please provide a copy of any original MOUs between the DfE and the Home
Office and/or Cabinet Office in effect on today's date (April 2, 2017) as
regards any interaction between requests for information and data or
information returned from any pupil data collected.

 

f) Please provide the name of the database used to store the nationality
data collected in the school census since October 2016, as it is known by
at the DfE.

 

g) With reference to (f), please provide a copy of a machine generated
audit trail log report of each and every use of that database effective
March 31, 2017. It should show information on all operations and queries
run such as but not exclusively, chronological dates and times of use,
include all human and machine (manual, ad hoc and scheduled) interactions,
field name level returns.

 

h) Please confirm if and when the Home Office (and police) volume of use
will be published on a regular basis in the Third Party Data releases
[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
or any other transparent disclosure mechanism.

 

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(“the Act”) and answered your individual questions as follows:

With reference to any pupil data ever collected via the School Census and
regardless of where it is stored or the name of the database:

a) Please provide a copy of each the original approved monthly data
request application forms from the Home Office received by the DfE in
January 2017, February 2017 and March 2017.

Copies of the monthly data requests application forms are attached.  

b) Please confirm:

i) the number of individuals for which requests were made from the Home
Office, in each month January 2017, February 2017 and March 2017 (Q1) and

ii) the number of individuals on which data was returned for each.

The numbers of individuals for which requests were made are as follows:

 

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Month | Records received from HO by | Matches returned to HO by |
| | DfE | DfE |
|-------------+-----------------------------+----------------------------|
|March 2017 | 176 | 37 |
|-------------+-----------------------------+----------------------------|
|February 2017| 74 | 26 |
|-------------+-----------------------------+----------------------------|
|January 2017 | 80 | 27 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

These numbers cover both monthly and ad-hoc requests.

 

c) Please provide the field names used in the algorithm(s) used to run any
of these data requests (if easier please provide a copy).

Please see FOI response - 2016-0058280

d) Please provide the field names returned to the Home Office in any of
these data requests.

Please see FOI response - 2016-0058280

e) Please provide a copy of any original MOUs between the DfE and the Home
Office and/or Cabinet Office in effect on today's date (April 2, 2017) as
regards any interaction between requests for information and data or
information returned from any pupil data collected.

Please see FOI Response - 2016-0048530

f) Please provide the name of the database used to store the nationality
data collected in the school census since October 2016, as it is known by
at the DfE.

The data referred to is currently stored in the ‘I-Store’ database.

The ‘I-Store’ database is a secure, read-only, database which is populated
with raw information collected by the Department via our centrally
specified data collections (including the school census). Access to
‘I-Store’ is restricted to a set of internal DfE analysts with such access
controlled by an information asset owner. This database is used by
analysts, with appropriate permission levels, to create aggregate level
data used to assess the quality of the information collected which may
subsequently be used, where appropriate, to populate a separate database
held within the Department for the purposes of internal analysis.

The Department’s initial assessment of the quality of the nationality,
country of birth and proficiency in English data held within ‘I-Store’ is
ongoing and, as such, this data has not been moved to any other databases
for more detailed analysis.

g) With reference to (f), please provide a copy of a machine generated
audit trail log report of each and every use of that database effective
March 31, 2017. It should show information on all operations and queries
run such as but not exclusively, chronological dates and times of use,
include all human and machine (manual, ad hoc and scheduled) interactions,
field name level returns.

Access to the nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English
data in I-Store is restricted to members of the
‘I_STORE_SC_UNRESTRICTED_USERS’ active directory group. The attached log
(see attached file: ‘User_profile’) shows the users who have access to
this data. Please note that the usernames of members of this group have
been redacted under section 40(2) (personal data) of the Act.

The attached logs (see attached file: ‘User_permissions) show the
permissions granted to members of the ‘I_STORE_SC_UNRESTRICTED_USERS’
active directory group when compared to the main ‘I_STORE_SC_ USERS’
group. This shows that members of the main group do not have access to the
PupilOnRoll_Unrestricted, PupilNoLongerOnRoll_Unrestricted and Nationality
database tables. Access to these tables is granted only to the restricted
group and, as illustrated by the attached log, members of that group only
have permission to select the data - they are unable to perform any other
actions on the data in these tables.

The attached logs (see attached file: ‘table_content) show the data
available within the PupilOnRoll, PupilOnRoll_Unrestricted,
PupilNoLongerOnRoll, PupilNoLongerOnRoll_Unrestricted and Nationality
database tables. From this you can see that nationality, country of birth
and proficiency in English data is only available within the
PupilOnRoll_Unrestricted, PupilNoLongerOnRoll_Unrestricted and Nationality
database tables which are only accessible with restricted permissions to
members of the ‘I_STORE_SC_UNRESTRICTED_USERS’ group.

No further logs relevant to this request are available from the I-Store
database.

h) Please confirm if and when the Home Office (and police) volume of use
will be published on a regular basis in the Third Party Data releases
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
or any other transparent disclosure mechanism.

                                                             

Under section 21 of the Act, the department is not required to provide
information in response to a request if it is already reasonably
accessible to you. The information you requested is available on Gov.uk at
the following link
[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...

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
([3]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
-[4]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 [5]www.ipo.gov.uk.

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,

Amanda Robinson

Department for Education

References

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Dear Department for Education,
thank you for the reply. I would like to ask for the audit log, as requested in the original FOI request:

"g) With reference to (f), please provide a copy of a machine generated audit trail log report of each and every use of that database effective March 31, 2017. It should show information on all operations and queries run such as but not exclusively, chronological dates and times of use, include all human and machine (manual, ad hoc and scheduled) interactions, field name level returns."

Your reply was, "No further logs relevant to this request are available from the I-Store database."

There is no audit log provided in the response. Please can you confirm whether this will follow, or whether we need to request an internal review to request this information.

To clarify, this means the informtion contained in the audit report, run by computer, about the use of the i-store database. These are usually created on a regular basis, often generated automatically. I am asking for this from this last quarter only, Q1 2017, the information from the machine generated audit trail log report of each and every use of that database effective as on March 31, 2017.

It should show information about the queries and reports run such as but not exclusively, chronological dates and times of use, include all human and machine (manual, ad hoc and scheduled) interactions, and which field names were used to run the query, and which were returned. Simplistically, showing what the database was used to provide data on, and when.

Sincerely,
Jen Persson

MINISTERS, Department for Education

Dear Ms Persson

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 2017-0029997.

Thank you

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

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