Privacy notice - education

Contact details

The information you have provided will be processed by ourselves:

  • address Newtown St Boswells, TD6 0SN
  • phone: 0300 100 1800
  • email: customeradvice@scotborders.gov.uk

Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the contact details above or by emailing dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk

How we will use pupil related information

As the Education Authority we have a statutory duty to provide every child in the Scottish Borders area with an education. To carry out this function we are required to hold, process and share certain information about your child as it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest.

The information you have provided about your child will be will be retained for five years after your child leaves the education system within the Scottish Borders area. The same retention period applies to information provided about parent(s), carer(s), guardian(s) and emergency contacts.

Who we may share your child’s information with

Your child’s information will be accessed by our staff who need to be aware of such information to ensure that your child is provided with an education at the appropriate level and with all necessary resources, and our Customer Advice and Support staff for benefit support and address verification. We may share your child’s information with another local authority if your child has commenced education in another local authority’s area. We may also share your child’s information with third party organisations who assist us in providing your child with an education, such as:

  • SEEMiS to enable the safe electronic storage of pupil records and information
  • ParentPay, EPS and CRB to allow the school to offer cashless catering and to receive payment for school trips and events
  • Groupcall to allow the school the school to communicate with you
  • Parent Bookings and Video Calls (Netmedia) to enable the online arrangement of parent’s evenings
  • Apple as part of Inspire Learning (P4-S6)
  • Boxall Profile assessment tool to help identify and respond to the social, emotional, behavioural and/or mental health difficulties of children and young people

We may be legally obliged to share personal data with other public bodies such as the:

  • Scottish Government for examination, career guidance and monitoring purposes
  • NHS for health monitoring purposes and will do so where the law requires this
  • Police for the prevention or detection of crime, protecting the vital interests or prosecution or apprehension of offenders

In certain instances the above may also apply to information held about parent(s), carer(s), guardian(s) and emergency contacts.

Your child’s information may also be shared and analysed internally in order to provide management information, inform service delivery reform and similar purposes to meet our duty to provide the highest possible level of education possible and to achieve continuous service improvement.

In general we do not transfer personal data outside either the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA) and on the rare occasions when we does so we will inform you. We will only transfer data outside the UK and the EEA when it is satisfied that the party which will handle the data and the country it is processing it in will provide adequate safeguards for personal privacy.

Decision making

We do not use profiling or automated decision-making processes. Some processes are semi-automated (such as anti-fraud data matching) but a human decision maker will always be involved before any decision is reached in relation to you.

Third party information

If you have provided anyone else's details to us, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to us. It is likely that we will only use their information as part of the assessment of your need for services and to contact them in connection with delivery of any such services. If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can see our privacy statement or email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk

Your rights

For information on the rights you have over your personal data, visit our website or if you would like a hard copy of this information, please contact us using the contact details provided above.

How to raise a complaint

We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you can contact the our Data Protection Officer by email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk or phone on 0300 100 1800.

However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about data protection matters with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who can be contacted by:

  • post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
  • phone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545745
  • website   

If your complaint is not about a data protection matter you can find details on how to make a complaint on our website.