UK Deparment of Education shares pupil data with immigration enforcement
In 2018, the UK Department of Education began collecting data for the schools census, a collection of children's data recorded in the national pupil database and including details such as age, address, and academic achievements. The DfE had collected data on 6 million English children when, in June 2018, opposition led the department to halt the project, which critics said was an attempt to turn schools into internal border checkpoints. In January 2019, however, in an answer to a Parliamentary question the DfE admitted it continued to store the data it had collected, and it also changed its policy so that parents could no longer ask schools to enter "refused", which instructs the DfE to delete their children's data. Investigation showed that the DfE had been sharing the census data with immigration enforcement every month since 2015.
Writer: Damien Gayle
Publication: Guardian
Publication date: 2019-01-13