School and College Voice Privacy notice
This Privacy Notice explains who is processing your data, the personal data we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and what your legal rights are.
Who we are
This work is being carried out by Verian who are conducting this series of surveys on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE). For the purpose of data protection legislation, DfE is the data controller for the personal data processed as part of this project.
How we will use your information
DfE receive your personal data from the information you provide in the short surveys you complete as part of this project. We have a contract in place with Verian to administer the School and College Voice on our behalf and carry out statistical analyses of the results in accordance with our instructions. This means that Verian cannot legally do anything with your personal data unless DfE have instructed them to do it. Verian will not share your personal data with any organisation apart from DfE, except where DfE authorise them.
To deliver this contract effectively, Verian receive some personal data from the School Workforce Census (SWFC), a key DfE data store on the size and characteristics of the workforce in state-funded schools.
Verian share data from the short surveys you complete as part of this project with DfE. This survey data includes some personal characteristics (e.g., gender) in a non-identifiable way. DfE will keep your survey answers separately from your contact details and other immediately identifying information: this is called 'pseudonymisation' and is allowed under a GDPR exemption on keeping personal data for scientific, or historical research purposes in accordance with Article 89(1).
The aim for this project is to help DfE gather rapid evidence on school and college teachers’ and leaders’ perspectives and experiences. This will have a public benefit, as it will help the department to make evidence-based policy decisions. Understanding the perspectives of school and college teaching and leadership staff will help us to better support education now and in the future.
Giving and withdrawing your permission to take part in the School and College Voice
We ask your permission to be part of the panel. We do this so that, after receiving information about how your data will be used, you can choose whether to take part in the study. You can contact us at any time to request to change any of the permissions that you have given. You do not need to give a reason for this. To contact Verian to withdraw your permission, please email scvoice@veriangroup.com or telephone 0800 008 3249.
DfE will keep a pseudo-anonymised version of your personal data for future analysis, as per the GDPR exemption on retaining personal data used for scientific, or historical research purposes in accordance with Article 89(1). Due to this pseudo-anonymisation, any requests for your data to be removed from the dataset must be given within 6 months of participation in the survey, while identifiers are still available. Once identifiers have been removed it will not be possible to do withdraw data.
As part of Verian’s Company Business Continuity plan and as required by their ISO 27001, ISO 9001, ISO 20252 certifications, and in certain instances the law, Verian’s electronic systems are backed up and archived. These archives are retained for a defined period of time in a strictly controlled environment. Once expired, the data is securely deleted.
The nature of your personal data we will be using
The categories of your personal data that we will be using for this project are:
- your full name
- gender
- age
- email address
- telephone number
- ethnic origin
- disability status
- sexual orientation
Why we process your data
Your contact details
We collect your contact details, such as your email and phone number, to invite you to take part in surveys and activities that relate to the research. Your contact details are initially shared securely with Verian so that they can administer the School and College Voice on DfE’s behalf. You may also provide additional contact details to Verian as part of the research so that they can send surveys to you more easily: these details are not shared with DfE.
Survey data
We collect your survey data (and other kinds of research data such as additional online surveys, focus groups, and online or telephone interviews) with your permission. You have the option to refuse to answer any individual questions without explanation. You can also withdraw your data from the survey dataset, but you must make the request within 6 months of having participated. You do not need to give a reason for your request to withdraw. To contact Verian to withdraw from the survey, please email scvoice@veriangroup.com or telephone 0800 008 3249.
Your answers and personal details will be kept in the strictest confidence and stored safely. Only researchers at Verian and the Department for Education will know what you have said. All statistics will be reported anonymously, meaning that it will not be possible to identify you in any published reports. However, if we believe someone is in direct threat of harm as a result of something that’s been disclosed, we may email to advise on where to go for support, or – in some exceptional circumstances – contact your school/college, or the police.
Qualitative data
As well as the short surveys, we may occasionally ask panel members if they are willing to take part in research looking at specific topic areas in more detail. This could include, for instance, additional online surveys, focus groups, and online or telephone interviews. You do not need to take part in these additional research activities if you do not want to and you will not receive additional emails about these activities unless you have agreed to be contacted about them. Additional privacy notices will be provided for these projects.
Adding information to your record – linked data
DfE wishes to understand teachers' and leaders' experiences in the context of other school-level data, including on education programmes or initiatives that may run at their school. To enable us to do this, we may link survey responses from the panel to school-level data from DfE's other data collections (e.g. school attendance data) or evaluation of specific education programmes and initiatives. Any link will be anonymised so your survey responses remain non-attributable.
To contact Verian to specify that you don’t want further information to be linked to your survey responses, please email SCVoice@veriangroup.com or telephone 0800 008 3249
Why our use of your personal data is lawful
To use your personal data in a lawful way, we need to meet one (or more) conditions in data protection legislation. For the purpose of this project, the relevant conditions are:
- Article 6(1)(e) GDPR, to perform a public task as part of our function as a department.
- Article 9 (2)(g) under the substantial public interest condition
In addition, general powers granted to the Secretary of State under Section 10 of the Education Act 1996, allows DfE to promote the education of the people in England and Wales. Furthermore, Section 83(1)(a) of the Children Act 1989 grants the Secretary of State the power to conduct, or assist other persons in conducting, research into any matter connected with their functions. It is necessary for DfE to process personal data to understand the perspective of school and college teachers and leaders on education, in order to support DfE’s objective to provide world-class education, training and care for all children and young people.
When Verian conducts surveys, their invitations/platforms and questionnaires clearly identify them and explain the purpose of their contact and if applicable, the purpose for collecting your personal data. You may decline to answer any questions or withdraw from a survey, as set out above.
All research for this project is being carried out in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.
Who we will make your personal data available to
DfE sometimes need to use other research organisations to help us deliver large pieces of work. In such instances we have a contract with these organisations. For the purposes of this project our contracted partner Verian has been employed to process your personal data on our behalf.
Only researchers at Verian and at the DfE will be able to see your individual survey responses and we pseudonymise these responses so that they are non-identifying. Verian will not share your personal data with any organisation apart from DfE, except where DfE authorise them. However, if we believe someone is in direct threat of harm as a result of something that’s been disclosed, we may email to advise on where to go for support, or – in some exceptional circumstances – contact your school/college, or the police.
By completing the survey, you give consent for researchers at Verian and the DfE to use information that is on the School Workforce Census (SWFC) and link these to your survey answers (including your gender, age, post held, and school characteristics).
Your data protection rights
More information about how the DfE handles personal information is published here:
Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
- Right to change your mind and to withdraw your consent
- Right to access your personal data
- Right to rectify your personal data
- Right to erase your personal data from our systems, unless we have legitimate interest reasons for continuing to process the information
- Right to port your personal data (portability right)
- Right to restrict processing of your personal data
- Right to object to the processing of your personal data
- Right to not be discriminated against for exercising any of the rights available to you under applicable data protection laws.
For further information and how to request your data, please use the ‘contact form’ in the Personal Information Charter under the ‘How to find out what personal information we hold about you’ section.
If you need to contact us regarding any of the above, please do so via DfE site.
Further information about your data protection rights appears on the Information Commissioner’s website.
To request personal information held by an education provider, for example a school, you must contact them directly.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files stored on your computer or device by a website that assign a numerical user ID and store certain information about your online browsing. They are used by web developers to help users navigate their websites efficiently and perform certain functions. The website sends information to the browser which then creates a text file. Every time the user goes back to the same website, the browser retrieves and sends this file to the website's server.
Verian do not use cookies on this survey. Where cookies are required by a partners’ platform, this is notified by the platform privacy notice/policy.
As is true of most online surveys, Verian gather certain information automatically and store it in survey data files. This information may include things like Internet Protocol addresses (IP address), browser type, Internet service provider (ISP); referring/exit pages, operating system and date/time stamp.
Verian use this automatically collected information to analyse trends such as browser usage and to administer the site, e.g., to optimise the survey experience depending on your browser type.
Verian may also use your IP address to check whether there have been multiple participations in the survey from this IP address.
Where will data be held and processed?
Your personal data may be collected, stored, transferred or processed by third-party service providers for research-related purposes, such as data processing, both within and outside the UK and the European Economic Area. Verian are required to request approval from the DfE before making use of these subcontractors.
All parties are contractually bound to keep any information they collect and disclose to us, or we collect and disclose to them, confidential and must protect it with security standards and practices that are equivalent to our own. If your personal data has been transferred to, stored, or otherwise processed to a territory outside the EEA and that territory has not been recognised as providing an adequate level of protection of personal data; we will put in place an appropriate legal safeguard. For example, standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission and other relevant authorities, working with parties that have implemented binding corporate rules or other intra-group processes, obtaining your consent to transfer personal data, where the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract between Verian or where a contract was entered into on your behalf, or where the transfer is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
Accuracy
Verian take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data accurate, complete, current and relevant, based on the most recent information provided to us. To contact Verian to update your personal data, please email scvoice@veriangroup.com or telephone 0800 008 3249.
Contact Information
If you have any questions about how your personal information will be used, complaints or if you’d like to exercise your data protection rights please contact us and enter School and College Voice as a reference. For the Data Protection Officer (DPO) please contact us and mark it for the attention of the ‘DPO’, referencing School and College Voice in your message.
If you are not satisfied with how we handle and protect personal data, you have the right to complain to a supervisory authority such as The Information Commissioner's Office in the UK, whose details can be found at www.ico.org.uk.
Last updated
DfE may need to update this privacy notice, so we recommend that you revisit this information from time to time. This version was last updated on 22/11/23 and published on the Verian website with permission.
Retention Guidance for the School and College Voice 2023-2025
Purpose
The purpose of this guidance is to ensure that necessary records and documents are adequately protected and maintained and to ensure that records that are no longer needed by the Department for Education (DfE) are discarded at the proper time.
Data retained for business purposes will be registered on an Information Asset Register maintained within the DfE and will be reviewed quarterly by the designated Information Asset Owner (IAO) for this project. Records and data held centrally will only be duplicated when necessary and will be stored digitally in a DfE approved secure location.
Policy Principles
All data will be retained for no longer than necessary in accordance with the timescales detailed in this Guidance. The DfE designated IAO is responsible for regulating the retention period for data under this project in line with the DfE Retention and Disposal Schedule.
For specific advice on how long to retain certain data, the DfE designated IAO for this project will be the first point of contact, or alternatively the Privacy Assurance Team in the Data Protection Office.
Scope
The personal and/or special category data that will be retained for School and College Voice 2023-2025:
- your full name
- gender
- age
- email address
- telephone number
- ethnic origin
- disability status
- sexual orientation
The DPA and GDPR require that personal data should not be excessive and kept no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is required.
DfE will keep your personal data for the purposes of this research for up to five years. This is as long as is needed to allow for future follow up research. This will likely take place about one or two years after the original project to track outcomes of those who took part in the research. Where consent is not given for us to hold this named dataset, personal data will be kept for six months after the project has been completed. After this period, it will be securely destroyed.
Under data protection legislation and in compliance with the relevant data processing conditions, the DfE can lawfully keep indefinitely any personal data processed purely for research and statistical purposes.
Disposal of data
When the retention period for identifying data relating to the School and College Voice has expired and a review indicates personal data is no longer needed, all electronically stored data will be deleted from DfE systems and any identifying data existing as a hard copy will be destroyed in line with DfE procedures. All versions (backup, portable, interim) of the data will also be deleted in a manner that they cannot be recovered.
Where data is managed by a processor on behalf of DfE, we will obtain evidence of deletion by requesting confirmation in writing or any other method specified under contracts or agreement with the third party.
Any personal data retained for archiving, scientific, historic or statistical purposes will be pseudonymisation before being kept indefinitely. Due to this pseudonymisation, any requests for your data to be removed from the dataset must be given within 6 months of participation in the survey, while identifiers are still available. Once identifiers have been removed it will not be possible to withdraw your survey data.
Review
This Retention Document will be reviewed annually. This version was last updated on 03/11/23 and published on the Verian website with permission.