§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (I) what safeguards she will put in place to protect children whose names are collected in the School Census; 141813]
(2) for how long the School Census records will be kept with children's names on them. [41814]
§ Mr. TimmsAccess to Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC) data including pupil names and unique pupil numbers (UPNs) is strictly limited to those technical staff for whom access is necessary in order to collate PLASC with data from other sources, as set out in my answer to the hon. Member on 5 March 2002,Official Report, column 237W.
Stringent safeguards are in place to prevent unauthorised access to pupil names or UPNs, which, once data collation is complete, will be held securely and separately from the data themselves. These safeguards will be kept continually under review in the light of guidance from the Information Commissioner.
Information about pupils remains of statistical value after they have left school—for example to analyse young people's progression from school into further education and training, higher education and the labour market. Pupil names will need to be retained in order to render such analyses possible. The Department will be using information on past pupils for statistical and research purposes only, and any disclosures will be for those purposes only. On this basis section 33 of the Data Protection Act allows personal data to be retained indefinitely.