Educational Maintenance Allowance: privacy notice

How the data is collected and stored

Data is transferred to the Scottish Government using secure transfer methods and the data is managed and stored on a secure server within the Scottish Government.

Protecting Individuals

The individual data about young people in receipt of EMA is collected by the Scottish Government’s Education Analytical Services for statistical and research purposes only for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

The Scottish Government will not publish or make publicly available any information that allows individual people to be identified, nor will data be used by Scottish Government to take any actions in respect of individuals.

Requirements of Others

Local authorities and colleges who originally collected the data from individuals are required to provide privacy notices to young people to explain how their personal data will be collected and used, and who it will be shared with. These are typically included on the application form for EMA.

Retention of Data

Education data within the Scottish Government is managed effectively by secure systems on secure servers and is exploited as a valuable corporate resource, subject to confidentiality restraints.

Regarding the retention of data, Article 5 of the GDPR “Principles relating to processing of personal data” states:

“personal data may be stored for longer periods insofar as the personal data will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes subject to implementation of the appropriate technical and organisational measures required by the GDPR in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals”.

The data are processed in line with this legislation.  The information collected will be used to inform planning and provision of education support, and the linkage of such data to educational outcomes.