Fair Processing Notices (FPN) for pupils and school workforce - background and links to suggested texts and cover notes
Background to guidance and suggested texts for FPNs and cover notes
Background — the Data Protection
Act
The DCSF, local authorities, schools and other educational bodies
collect, hold and use a great deal of information about individuals,
particularly pupils at maintained schools and the school workforce.
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA):
- Identifiable data about living individuals is known as personal data. The Act puts in place numerous safeguards for the use of personal data, as opposed to data such as statistics that are anonymous or aggregated, i.e. where a specific individual cannot be identified.
- Those who are responsible for gathering and holding personal data are known as data controllers and are required to advise data subjects (those whose data is held) what is held, for what purpose, with whom it is shared and how it is processed. This is done by issuing a Fair Processing Notice (FPN) to data subjects.
Suggested texts for FPNs
Guidance and suggested texts for the FPNs and covering notes which
should be issued are available on the FPN pages of the IMS section of
Teachernet:
- FPN for pupils, to go to the parents or school pupils themselves, depending on their age; and
- FPN for members of the school workforce
General guidance to the law on data processing and sharing is also available in the A to Z.
Last updated: 15 July 2007
