Govt releases schoolkids’ data

Govt releases schoolkids' dataThe Government is risking further controversy after it revealed that data on every school child in England – including their names and addresses, dates of birth and exam results – is to be made available to private companies.
The Department for Education is sharing extracts from its National Pupil Database (NPD), which has been collected since 2002, and pupils and parents have had no right to refuse having the details stored on the database.
The DoE is releasing extracts – which also include test and exam results, types of disability, whether a child is in care, whether they have been excluded from school, ethnicity and special educational needs – for free.
They are available to any “organisation or person who, for the purpose of promoting the education or well-being of children in England are: conducting research or analysis, producing statistics, providing information, advice or guidance”.
The data will be released in four types of data tiers. Tier 1 contains “the most sensitive personal information”, and tier 2 contains “other sensitive personal information, including less sensitive versions of tier 1 data”. Tier 3 contains “school-level data”, and tier 4 contains “other pupil-level data”, like “attainment, absence and exclusions”.
Last week, HM Revenue & Customs revealed plans to sell off taxpayers anonymised data to private firms, in a move which was branded “borderline insane” by one Tory MP.

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1 Comment on "Govt releases schoolkids’ data"

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