My Department does not hold a schedule of datasets shared with other bodies covering the past 20 years to date.
Where my Department shares personal data with another organisation, it does so on the basis of the lawful grounds set out in Article 6 (and Article 9 if applicable) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 i.e. with the consent of the data subject, for the performance of a contract, for compliance with a legal obligation, to protect the vital interests of the data subject, for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Department or for the purposes of legitimate interests.
Currently, my Department shares data from the teacher payrolls, Primary Online Database, Post-Primary Online Database and other datasets with other organisations for purposes such as compliance with employee tax obligations, organisation of the State exams, to support children with special educational needs or those at risk of educational disadvantage, in connection with legal proceedings, reporting of child protection concerns, provision of school transport, audit purposes, referral for financial support under the Affordable Childcare Scheme to support parents to remain in education, and to facilitate student testing for international education studies such as PISA. The transfer of data may be in aggregated form or on an individual basis depending on the purpose.
The sharing of this data is notified to data subjects through the Department’s overall Data Protection Notice and Privacy Notice available here: Department of Education - Data Protection and through individual Privacy Notices associated with various data processing activities.
Where such sharing takes place, appropriate governance agreements are in place to identify the roles and respective responsibilities of each party, including data sharing agreements under the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019 where required. When sharing personal data, my Department adheres to the principles set out in the GDPR including those of purpose limitation, data minimisation, and integrity and confidentiality.
