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Privacy Notice: Report Extremism in Education

Who we are

The Department for Education (DfE) plays a crucial role in the government-wide strategy to prevent extremism by ensuring extremism has no place in the education system and that children and young people are protected from exposure to extremists and extremist messages.

The department is the data controller for the personal information processed.

How we use your information

Individuals can contact us by:

  • using the online ‘Report extremism in education’ Public Referral Form’ which is found on .gov.uk;
  • calling the Counter Extremism helpline.

When we receive information, we create a record on our internal database containing the details of the issue or concerns raised. This normally contains the identity of the correspondent and any other details regarding the concern.

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the concern, which in some cases might cause us to investigate the concern further.

A correspondent does not have to provide their personal and/or contact information. However, this might limit our ability to look into the concern. Where personal or contact information has been provided, there may be circumstances where we might need to share information with other organisations or agencies, such as the police or Local Authorities. We only share information if the law allows us to.

We compile statistics on the number of correspondences broken down by the three routes we receive, but not in a form which can identify a specific individual.

The nature of your personal data we collect

Typically, the categories of your personal data that we collect are:

  • Your name
  • Your address and contact details
  • Your role or relationship to the person/school of concern (for example if you are a parent or a teacher)
  • Your occupation

Why our use of your personal data is lawful

In order for our use of your personal data to be lawful, we need to meet one (or more) conditions in the data protection legislation. For the purpose of this work, the relevant condition that we are meeting is Article 6 (1)(e) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in that any personal information gathered is necessary for us to fulfil our task in the public interest. In this case, the public interest is likely to be where the concern relates to the safeguarding of children and young people or those that are vulnerable or at imminent risk.

Who we will make your personal data available to

We might need to share information with other organisations or agencies, such as the police or Local Authorities in order to safeguard children, young people or anyone else we might consider vulnerable. Where we need to share your personal data with others, we ensure that this data sharing complies with data protection legislation.

How long we will keep your personal data

We will keep your data for as long as necessary to process the concern after which it will be securely destroyed in the line with our retention policy.

Transfer to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We may share your data with relevant authorities who are based outside the EEA in order to safeguard children, young people or anyone else we might consider vulnerable. Where we need to share your personal data with others, we ensure that this data sharing complies with data protection legislation.

Your data protection rights

Under certain circumstances, you have the right:

  • to ask us for access to information about you that we hold;
  • to have your personal data rectified, if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
  • to request the deletion or removal of personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing;
  • to restrict our processing of your personal data (i.e. permitting its storage but no further processing);
  • to object to direct marketing (including profiling) and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics;
  • not to be subject to decisions based purely on automated processing where it produces a legal or similarly significant effect on you.

Further information about your data protection rights appears on the Information Commissioner’s website at: https://ico.org.uk/.

How to contact us about your personal information

To contact us about any of the above:

  • use our online contact form, or
  • telephone 0370 000 2288, or
  • write to:

    Department for Education
    Piccadilly Gate
    Store Street
    Manchester
    M1 2WD
    United Kingdom

If you wish to complain about our processing of your personal information, please mark your enquiry for the attention of the Data Protection Officer (DPO).

You have the right to raise any concerns about our processing of personal information with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) via their website at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

Last updated

We may need to update this privacy notice periodically, so we recommend that you revisit this information from time to time. This version was last updated in April 2023.