Learning research: privacy notice

How the data is collected and stored

All data will be stored securely on Scottish Government or contractor premises and only be transferred by secure software or after suitable anonymisation

Protecting Individuals

The individual data about children and young people educated in, and the workforce of, Scotland’s schools is collected by the Scottish Government’s Education Analytical Services for statistical and research purposes only for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

The Scottish Government will not publish or make publicly available any information that allows individual people be identified, nor will data be used by Scottish Government to take any actions in respect of individuals.

Retention of Data

Education data within the Scottish Government is managed effectively by secure systems on secure servers and is exploited as a valuable corporate resource, subject to confidentiality restraints.

Regarding the retention of data, Article 5 of the GDPR “Principles relating to processing of personal data” states:

“personal data may be stored for longer periods insofar as the personal data will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes subject to implementation of the appropriate technical and organisational measures required by the GDPR in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals”.

The data are processed in line with this legislation.  The information collected will be used to inform planning and provision of education, and the linkage of such data to educational outcomes or health data.  For example, researchers or charities may be interested in applying for access to education data to meet their own research needs.  

However, we will only retain quantitative data (e.g. survey data, monitoring returns). Qualitative data collected from individuals, such as interview transcripts, will be destroyed by the contractor, or the Scottish Government, depending on who conducted the study, when the analysis is complete.