Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is monitoring content that is publicly available on social networking sites using overt monitoring techniques.

The Department’s small social media team within the communications directorate is responsible for the management of the Department’s social media channels. One part of this team’s role includes manually monitoring content that is publicly made available on social media – including our partners, stakeholders, individuals and our own channels. Monitoring can also be undertaken by other members of the Department, such as analysts, digital/web specialists and policy leads.