Our school aims to ensure that all personal data collected about staff, pupils, parents, governors, visitors and other individuals is collected, stored and processed in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018).
This policy applies to all personal data, regardless of whether it is in paper or electronic format.
This policy meets the requirements of the UK GDPR and the provisions of the DPA 2018. It is based on guidance published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the UK GDPR and the ICO’s code of practice for subject access requests. It also reflects the ICO’s code of practice for the use of surveillance cameras and personal information.
In addition, this policy complies with regulation 5 of the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005, which gives parents the right of access to their child’s educational record.
Term |
Definition |
Personal data | Any information relating to an identified, or identifiable, individual. This may include the individual’s:
· Name (including initials) · Identification number · Location data · Online identifier, such as a username It may also include factors specific to the individual’s physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity. |
Special categories of personal data | Personal data which is more sensitive and so needs more protection, including information about an individual’s:
· Racial or ethnic origin · Political opinions · Religious or philosophical beliefs · Trade union membership · Genetics · Biometrics (such as fingerprints, retina and iris patterns), where used for identification purposes · Health – physical or mental · Sex life or sexual orientation |
Processing | Anything done to personal data, such as collecting, recording, organising, structuring, storing, adapting, altering, retrieving, using, disseminating, erasing or destroying.
Processing can be automated or manual. |
Data subject | The identified or identifiable individual whose personal data is held or processed. |
Data controller | A person or organisation that determines the purposes and the means of processing of personal data. |
Data processor | A person or other body, other than an employee of the data controller, who processes personal data on behalf of the data controller. |
Personal data breach | A breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to personal data. |
Our school processes personal data relating to parents, pupils, staff, governors, visitors and others, and therefore is a data controller.
The school is registered as a data controller with the ICO and will renew this registration annually or as otherwise legally required.
This policy applies to all staff employed by our school, and to external organisations or individuals working on our behalf. Staff who do not comply with this policy may face disciplinary action.
The governing board has overall responsibility for ensuring that our school complies with all relevant data protection obligations.
The data protection officer (DPO) is responsible for overseeing the implementation of this policy, monitoring our compliance with data protection law, and developing related policies and guidelines where applicable.
They will provide an annual report of their activities directly to the governing board and, where relevant, report to the board their advice and recommendations on school data protection issues.
The DPO is also the first point of contact for individuals whose data the school processes, and for the ICO. Full details of the DPO’s responsibilities are set out in their SLA.
Our DPO is SchoolPro TLC Limited and is contactable via [email protected]
The headteacher acts as the representative of the data controller on a day-to-day basis.
Staff are responsible for:
The UK GDPR is based on data protection principles that our school must comply with. The principles say that personal data must be:
This policy sets out how the school aims to comply with these principles.
We will only process personal data where we have one of 6 ‘lawful bases’ (legal reasons) to do so under data protection law:
For further detail of which lawful basis is used for each category of data, see the relevant privacy notice.
For special categories of personal data, we will also meet one of the special category conditions for processing which are set out in the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. This is laid out in more detail in point 7.3.
If we offer online services to pupils, such as classroom apps, we intend to rely on Public Task as a basis for processing, where this is not appropriate we will get parental consent for processing (except for online counselling and preventive services).
Whenever we first collect personal data directly from individuals, we will provide them with the relevant information required by data protection law.
We will only collect personal data for specified, explicit and legitimate reasons. We will explain these reasons to the individuals when we first collect their data.
If we want to use personal data for reasons other than those given when we first obtained it, we will inform the individuals concerned before we do so, and seek consent where necessary.
Staff must only process personal data where it is necessary in order to do their jobs.
When staff no longer need the personal data they hold, they must ensure it is deleted or anonymised. This will be done in accordance with the school’s record retention schedule.
As part of our statutory functions, we process special category data and criminal offence data in accordance with the requirements of Articles 9 and 10 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’) and Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘DPA 2018’).
Special category data is defined at Article 9 of the UK GDPR as personal data revealing:
Article 10 of the UK GDPR covers processing in relation to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures. In addition, section 11(2) of the DPA 2018 specifically confirms that this includes personal data relating to the alleged commission of offences or proceedings for an offence committed or alleged to have been committed, including sentencing. This is collectively referred to as ‘criminal offence data’.
Some of the Schedule 1 conditions for processing special category and criminal offence data require us to have an Appropriate Policy Document (‘APD’) in place, setting out and explaining our procedures for securing compliance with the principles in Article 5 and policies regarding the retention and erasure of such personal data.
This section of our Data Protection Policy document explains our processing and satisfies the requirements of Schedule 1, Part 4 of the DPA 2018.
In addition, it provides some further information about our processing of special category and criminal offence data where a policy document isn’t a specific requirement. The information supplements our privacy notices.
We process special categories of personal data under the following UK GDPR Articles:
In circumstances where we seek consent, we make sure that the consent is unambiguous and for one or more specified purposes, is given by an affirmative action and is recorded as the condition for processing.
Examples of our processing include staff dietary requirements and health information we receive from our pupils who require a reasonable adjustment to access our services.
Examples of our processing include staff sickness absences.
An example of our processing would be using health information about a pupil or member of staff in a medical emergency.
Examples of our processing include processing relating to any employment tribunal or other litigation.
As a school, we are a publicly funded body and provide a safeguarding role to young and vulnerable
people. Our processing of personal data in this context is for the purposes of substantial public interest and is necessary for the carrying out of our role.
Examples of our processing include the information we seek or receive as part of investigating an allegation.
The relevant purpose we rely on is Schedule 1 Part 1 paragraph 4 – archiving.
An example of our processing is the transfers we make to the County Archives as set out in our Records Management Policy.
We process criminal offence data under Article 10 of the UK GDPR
Examples of our processing of criminal offence data include pre-employment checks and declarations by an employee in line with contractual obligations.
Almost all of the substantial public interest conditions in Schedule 1 Part 2 of the DPA 2018, plus the condition for processing employment, social security and social protection data, require an APD (see Schedule 1 paragraphs 1 and 5).
This section of the policy is the APD for the school. It demonstrates that the processing of special category (‘SC’) and criminal offence (‘CO’) data based on these specific Schedule 1 conditions is compliant with the requirements of the UK GDPR Article 5 principles. Our retention with respect to this data is documented in our retention schedules.
We process the special category data about our employees that is necessary to fulfil our obligations as an employer. This includes information about their health and wellbeing, ethnicity, photographs and their membership of any union.
Further information about this processing can be found in our staff privacy notice.
We process the special category data about the children in our care and other members of our community that is necessary to fulfil our obligations as a school, and for safeguarding and care. This includes information about their health and wellbeing, ethnicity, photographs and other categories of data relevant to the provision of care. Further information about this processing can be found in our pupil privacy notice.
We also maintain a record of our processing activities in accordance with Article 30 of the UK GDPR.
We process SC data for the following purposes in Part 1 of Schedule 1:
We process SC data for the following purposes in Part 2 of Schedule 1. All processing is for the first listed purpose and might also be for others dependent on the context:
We process criminal offence data for the following purposes in parts 1, 2 and 3 of Schedule 1:
We will not normally share personal data with anyone else, but may do so where:
We will also share personal data with law enforcement and government bodies where we are legally required to do so, including for:
We may also share personal data with emergency services and local authorities to help them to respond to an emergency situation that affects any of our pupils or staff.
Where we transfer personal data to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area, we will do so in accordance with data protection law.
Individuals have a right to make a ‘subject access request’ to gain access to personal information that the school holds about them. This includes:
Subject access requests must be submitted in writing, either by letter, email or fax to the DPO. They should include:
If staff receive a subject access request, they must immediately forward it to the DPO / Headteacher.
Personal data about a child belongs to that child, and not the child’s parents or carers. For a parent or carer to make a subject access request with respect to their child, the child must either be unable to understand their rights and the implications of a subject access request, or have given their consent.
Children below the age of 12 are generally not regarded to be mature enough to understand their rights and the implications of a subject access request. Therefore, most subject access requests from parents or carers of pupils at our school may be granted without the express permission of the pupil. This is not a rule and a pupil’s ability to understand their rights will always be judged on a case-by-case basis.
When responding to requests, we:
We will not disclose information if it:
If the request is unfounded or excessive, we may refuse to act on it, or charge a reasonable fee which takes into account administrative costs.
A request will be deemed to be unfounded or excessive if it is repetitive or asks for further copies of the same information.
When we refuse a request, we will tell the individual why, and tell them they have the right to complain to the ICO.
The UK GDPR does not prevent a data subject making a subject access request via a third party. Requests from third parties are dealt with as follows:
In addition to the right to make a subject access request (see above), and to receive information when we are collecting their data about how we use and process it (see section 7), individuals also have the right to:
Individuals should submit any request to exercise these rights to the Headteacher or DPO. If staff receive such a request, they must immediately forward it to the DPO or Headteacher.
It is important to note that the school could be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for failing to comply with their statutory responsibilities regarding SARs and other data protection rights of the individual, and penalties (including financial) may apply.
Parents, or those with parental responsibility, have a legal right to free access to their child’s educational records if the child attends a maintained school.
There is no equivalent legal right to access their child’s educational record if the child attends an academy or free school in England or an independent school. Our school has made the decision to grant equivalent access to the parents of our pupils in line with the ICO’s guidance, in order to retain appropriate communication between parents and the school.
Update as applicable for the school.
The school does not collect or otherwise process biometric data.
The school does currently have a CCTV system on site.
As part of our school activities, we may take photographs and record images of individuals within our school.
We will not seek consent from parents/carers for photographs and videos to be taken of their child for educational purposes for use in the classroom and school displays. We will process these images under the legal basis of Public Task.
We will obtain written consent from parents/carers for photographs and videos to be taken of their child for communication, marketing and promotional materials. We will clearly explain how the photograph and/or video will be used to both the parent/carer and pupil.
Uses may include:
Consent can be refused or withdrawn at any time. If consent is withdrawn, we will delete the photograph or video and not distribute it further.
When using photographs and videos in this way we will not usually accompany them with any other personal information about the child, to ensure they cannot be identified.
See our Child protection and safeguarding policy for more information on our use of photographs and videos.
We will put measures in place to show that we have integrated data protection into all of our data processing activities, including:
A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is a process to help us identify and minimise the data protection risks of a project.
We will do a DPIA for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to individuals as well as any other major project which requires the processing of personal data.
It is vital that the DPIA is completed before processing is commenced to ensure that all risks are identified and mitigated as much as possible.
Our DPIA will:
To assess the level of risk, we will consider both the likelihood and the severity of any impact on individuals. High risk could result from either a high probability of some harm, or a lower possibility of serious harm.
We will consult our data protection officer (SchoolPro TLC Ltd) and, where appropriate, individuals and relevant experts. We may also need to consult with relevant processors.
If we identify a high risk that we cannot mitigate, we will consult the ICO before starting the processing.
We will implement the measures we identified from the DPIA, and integrate them into our policies, procedures, and practice.
We will protect personal data and keep it safe from unauthorised or unlawful access, alteration, processing or disclosure, and against accidental or unlawful loss, destruction or damage.
In particular:
The Queen Margaret Primary School archive is retained as a resource to help inspire and equip current staff and pupils to understand and appreciate issues of identity, belonging and shared heritage; to prompt memories of school-life among many generations of Queen Margaret Primary School pupils ; and to serve as a research resource for all interested in the history of Queen Margaret Primary School and the community it serves
Personal data that is no longer needed will be disposed of securely. Personal data that has become inaccurate or out of date will also be disposed of securely, where we cannot or do not need to rectify or update it. This is with the exception of data that is retained in our school archive as described in section 15.
For example, we will shred or incinerate paper-based records, and overwrite or delete electronic files. We may also use a third party to safely dispose of records on the school’s behalf. If we do so, we will require the third party to provide sufficient guarantees that it complies with data protection law.
The school will make all reasonable endeavours to ensure that there are no personal data breaches. In the unlikely event of a suspected data breach, we will follow the procedure set out in appendix 1.
When appropriate, we will report the data breach to the ICO within 72 hours. Such breaches in a school context may include, but are not limited to:
It is important to note that the school could be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for high risk data breaches and penalties (including financial) may apply.
All staff and governors are provided with data protection training as part of their induction process.
Data protection will also form part of continuing professional development, where changes to legislation, guidance or the school’s processes make it necessary.
This policy will be reviewed and updated every year and shared with the full governing board.
This data protection policy is linked to our:
This procedure is based on guidance on personal data breaches produced by the ICO.
The Headteacher or DPO will submit the remaining information as soon as possible
Records of all breaches will be stored are in the Breach-Log document in electronic format.
An example of the actions we will take to mitigate the impact of a data breach are set out below, focusing especially on a breach involving particularly risky or sensitive information. We will review the effectiveness of these actions and amend them as necessary after any data breach.
Sensitive information being disclosed via email (including safeguarding records)
Other types of breach might include: