Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what legal advice her Department has received on meeting data protection requirements to provide information to parents and children about the collection of children's data for the national pupils database.

The Department seeks legal advice as and when necessary in relation to data collection and usage.

The Department informs parents and children about how their data is used via GOV.UK. The Department also recognises that for many parents their main point of contact is with schools. Schools are data controllers in their own right, and must take responsibility for ensuring that parents and pupils are aware of what data is collected and why. The Department helps schools to do that by publishing suggested wording for schools’ privacy notices. These notices include links to the department’s website on GOV.UK and are regularly updated to keep in line with best practice, with the importance of them regularly communicated to schools.