Sharing National Pupil Database data with the Home Office and Police

The request was partially successful.

Dear Department for Education,

Ref:https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

Thank you for your recent response to the above Freedom of Information response in which the Department replied: "Since April 2012, the Police have submitted 31 requests for information to the National Pupil Database. All were granted, however only 21 resulted in information being supplied. Since April 2012, the Home Office has submitted 20 requests for information to the National Pupil Database. Of these 18 were granted and 2 were refused as the NPD did not contain the information requested."

To expand on this a little further, under the Freedom of Information Act please advise the number of requests granted to the Police and Home Office by each body, that were:

i) individual data on individual pupils
ii) aggregated data
iii) please indicate how many children’s data was aggregated per request by Tier level and age of students
iv) please supply the nature of the requests by the Home Office and Police, i.e. copies of the requests

Some parts of this request may be easier to answer than others and in such case please could you release available data as soon as possible rather than delay the entire request.
If you are not fully certain of what it is I am asking then I look forward to contact from you as soon as possible to clarify what it is I am requesting in order to meet your obligations under the law. If the costs of processing this request exceed the limit in the Act, please advise on what information you are able to supply within the cost limit.

Yours faithfully,

Pippa King

Department for Education

Dear Ms 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 2016-0038372.
Thank you

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

Dear Ms King,
Ref: 2016-0038372
Thank you for your follow-up request for information, which was received on 10/08/2016. The request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”).
You asked the following:

Ref:https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

Thank you for your recent response to the above Freedom of Information response in which the Department replied: "Since April 2012, the Police have submitted 31 requests for information to the National Pupil Database. All were granted, however only 21 resulted in information being supplied. Since April 2012, the Home Office has submitted 20 requests for information to the National Pupil Database. Of these 18 were granted and 2 were refused as the NPD did not contain the information requested."

To expand on this a little further, under the Freedom of Information Act please advise the number of requests granted to the Police and Home Office by each body, that were:

i) individual data on individual pupils

ii) aggregated data

iii) please indicate how many children’s data was aggregated per request by Tier level and age of students

iv) please supply the nature of the requests by the Home Office and Police, i.e. copies of the requests

i) all requests granted were for individual data on individual pupils

ii) none of the requests granted were for aggregated data

iii) as above, none of the data was aggregated

iv) the FOI Act provides a number of exemptions upon which organisations can rely when considering such requests. In this case, the Department is applying section 40(2) (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 requester. 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.

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 wish to complain about the handling of this FOI request, 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,
Martin Johnson
Department for Education

Dear Department for Education,

Thank you for your answer. With regards to your response to:
iv) please supply the nature of the requests by the Home Office and Police, i.e. copies of the requests.
The Department's response was exemption under FOIA section 40(2) (personal data). However, I am not requesting personal data but primarily 'the nature of the requests', with providing a copy if possible of the requests. I fully expect any copies of requests with personal data to be appropriately redacted.

I would therefore be grateful if the Department could please advise on the nature of the requests fulfilling my Freedom of Information request, without breaching Data Protection with regards to personal information.

Many thanks for your time on this.

Yours faithfully,

Pippa King

Department for Education

Thank you for your message. Please note that from 1st October 2016 this email address is changing to [DfE request email]

Department for Education

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Department for Education

Dear Ms King,
Ref: 2016-0042333
Thank you for your follow-up request for information, which was received on 13/09/2016. The request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”).
Your follow-up FOI request referred to a previous FOI request we had responded to which asked about requests that the department had received to interrogate the National Pupil Database by asking the following:
if the Department could please advise on the nature of the [NPD] requests fulfilling my Freedom of Information request, without breaching Data Protection with regards to personal information.

The nature of all requests from the Police and the Home Office is to search for specific individuals in the National Pupil Database and to return the latest address and/or school information held where a match is found in the NPD.

The Police requests are either to inform criminal investigations or to protect children’s interests. Each Police request form contains details of the individual concerned to enable to us to search for them in the NPD together with the reason their information is required. Releasing the exact specifics of these requests risks identifying individuals, even when all personal data is redacted, and as such these have been grouped together into a level which hopefully satisfies your interest. Police requests cover:

- Providing address information held by schools at particular points in time, for individuals or the children of individuals suspected of a criminal activity where it may be important to an investigation.

- Providing information about what schools people accused of criminal activity attended at certain times where it may be important to an investigation.

- Validating certain information provided by a suspect where it may be important to an investigation.

- Providing school absence information where it may be important to an investigation.

The Home Office requests are to support the Home Office Absconder Tracing Team’s (NATT) key objectives and commitment to upholding a duty of care for missing children and abuse of immigration control. All cases within the Home Office requests are a) dependant(s) of a parent/guardian who is suspected of an offence under section 24 or 24A of the Immigration Act 1971, or section 35 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 has been, or is being committed or b) the child in question is an unaccompanied minor and HO has lost contact with the child giving rise to concerns over their wellbeing. Each Home Office request includes details of the individuals concerned as held to enable to us to search for them in the NPD. There is a standard request form which only differs each time in the number of individuals being provided to search for and the password to access the data file.

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 wish to complain about the handling of this FOI request, 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,
Martin Johnson
Department for Education

Dear Department for Education,

Re: Home Office - 18 granted requests, Police - 21 granted requests.
Thank you for your reply, please could you clarify whether each separate request was for one individual's data or whether any separate requests had multiple requests for individual's data. Where there are multiple individual's data aggregated in one request please could you advise how many individual's this involved. I.e. supply the numbers of individual's data granted per request.

I appreciate your time in this matter.
Many thanks,

Yours faithfully,

Pippa King

Dear Department for Education,

Ref: 2016-0042333

Please could you respond to my clarification, sent on 11th October 216, regarding your reply to my Freedom of Information request, see below:
"Re: Home Office - 18 granted requests, Police - 21 granted requests.
Thank you for your reply, please could you clarify whether each separate request was for one individual's data or whether any separate requests had multiple requests for individual's data. Where there are multiple individual's data aggregated in one request please could you advise how many individual's this involved. I.e. supply the numbers of individual's data granted per request."

Many thanks for your time on this.

Yours faithfully,

Pippa King

ACCOUNT, Unmonitored, Department for Education

Mrs King

 

Ref: 2016-0047303

 

I write regarding your Freedom of Information request which was received
13/10/2016 where you asked the following:

 

Re: Home Office - 18 granted requests, Police - 21 granted requests.

Thank you for your reply, please could you clarify whether each separate
request was for one individual's data or whether any separate requests had
multiple requests for individual's data.  Where there are multiple
individual's data aggregated in one request please could you advise how
many individual's this involved.  I.e. supply the numbers of individual's
data granted per request.

 

In reviewing our FOI system it appears that this one may not have received
a direct response, although we have answered similar queries about the
volumes of records involved that have put the information into the public
domain.
[1]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

[2]https://www.parliament.uk/business/publi...

[3]http://www.parliament.uk/business/public...

 

I would like to sincerely apologise on behalf of the Department for not
ensuring that your specific question was given a personal reply. Please
can you confirm whether your request is still current and you would like a
personal reply, or whether the links above suffice. 

 

We will do my utmost to ensure a response is supplied as soon as possible
upon your response.

 

Many thanks

Samantha Morrison

National Pupil Database

References

Visible links
1. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...
2. https://www.parliament.uk/business/publi...
3. http://www.parliament.uk/business/public...

ACCOUNT, Unmonitored, Department for Education

Mrs King

 

Ref: 2016-0047303

 

I write regarding the above FOI which was received 13/10/2016 where you
asked the following:

 

Re: Home Office - 18 granted requests, Police - 21 granted requests.

Thank you for your reply, please could you clarify whether each separate
request was for one individual's data or whether any separate requests had
multiple requests for individual's data.  Where there are multiple
individual's data aggregated in one request please could you advise how
many individual's this involved.  I.e. supply the numbers of individual's
data granted per request.

 

In reviewing our FOI system it appears that this one may not have received
a direct response, although we have answered similar queries about the
volumes of records involved that have put the information into the public
domain.
[1]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

[2]https://www.parliament.uk/business/publi...

[3]http://www.parliament.uk/business/public...

 

I would like to sincerely apologise on behalf of the Department for not
ensuring that your specific question was given a personal reply. Please
can you confirm whether your request is still current and you would like a
personal reply, or whether the links above suffice. 

 

We will do my utmost to ensure a response is supplied as soon as possible
upon your response.

 

Many thanks

Samantha Morrison

References

Visible links
1. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...
2. https://www.parliament.uk/business/publi...
3. http://www.parliament.uk/business/public...