School census changes add concerns to the richest education database in the world

Jen Persson discusses the background and implications of the Department for Education’s policy and practice on collecting and sharing the personal data of 20 million children in the National Pupil Database. There has been no public or parliamentary consultation on recently proposed changes to collect pupils’ country of birth and other personal data, and this raises significant questions of trust and privacy invasion. Jen is coordinator of defenddigitalme, which campaigns for children’s privacy rights, and improved transparency in policy and practice with regard to the National Pupil Database. She can be found on Twitter via @TheABB or the campaign @defenddigitalme¹.