Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assurance his Department provides to parents that data on children collected for educational purposes will not subsequently be used for immigration enforcement.

The Department publishes information about all of its data sharing as part of its commitment to transparency which includes the number of records shared from the Department for Education to Home Office (HO) to support HO Immigration Enforcement’s key objectives of preventing abuse of immigration control. This publication (last updated on 13 December 2018) can be found on GOV.UK at the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfe-external-data-shares

This information is also included within the suggested wording for privacy notices that the Department makes available for schools to support them with communicating appropriate messages about how an individual’s personal data will be used.

The HO can only request information from the Department for Education for immigration enforcement purposes in circumstances where they have clear evidence a child may be at risk or there is evidence of illegal activity, including illegal immigration. In such cases limited data including a pupil’s address and school details may be requested from the National Pupil Database. It is right that this data is shared if it helps to keep a child safe from harm or to disrupt a crime.