Allister objects to 'Big Brother' data collection by Ruane

13 October 2009

As the Education Bill proceeds through the Assembly today, TUV Leader Jim Allister QC, who has previously strongly criticised the creation of the centralised and all-controlling Education and Skills Authority (ESA), has attacked what he terms “the Big Brother data base” which ESA will control.

An eSchools Data Warehouse is being created within which a vast range of both educational and personal data will be held on every pupil in Northern Ireland and their parents. Whereas each school will only have access to its own data both ESA and the Department of education will have unhindered universal access.

In a statement Mr Allister said:-

“ESA and the Department under Ruane will, at the touch of a button, have not just educational data on every child, but highly sensitive personal data, including the religion of every child, the home and work address of every child’s contact, normally their parents. To this I object. At this time of increased terrorist threat and given the history in Northern Ireland of republican terrorists targeting security personnel, it is madness to collate information of this sensitivity and make it available within a Department where it only takes one mole to feed the IRA with security-compromising information and we will have murder on our hands.

There should be no such personal data collected and stored centrally. Only educational data is relevant and beyond that there is no justification for this “Big Brother”, Ruane controlled, data base.

Indeed as a Chairman of a school Board of Governors myself, I would challenge the right of this information to be collated under the new eSchools Data Warehouse scheme. The Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 limits the Department of Education (DE) and Education and Library Boards (ELBs) to collecting such information from schools as they may “reasonably require” for the purposes of their functions under any statutory provision. 

Gathering information which is used to enable funding to be provided to schools, to allow ELBs to provide services such as school transport or free school meals to pupils, where appropriate, and to allow, at a more general level, the Department to develop, monitor and evaluate its policies in relation to education provision, is one thing, but needlessly collecting personal data on both pupils and parents is something else.

Moreover, under the Education (Pupil Records and Reporting) (Transitional) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2007 it is expressly stated "Nothing in these Regulations shall empower or authorise the Board of Governors of any school to make arrangements for the disclosure, supply of copies, or transfer of - ...

(c) information as to the name, address or occupation of a pupil's parent or as to the religious denomination to which a pupil belongs, otherwise than to that parent". 

Yet under the eSchools Data Warehouse scheme just such information, and more, is to be furnished to both the Department and ESA.

If the Assembly permits this ‘Big Brother’ infringement of data protection expectations, then it will underscore the view of many as to its inherent uselessness.”

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