Colleagues
Re Supply of Named Student Data to HESA Statutory Customers
For your information, the following text is extracted from a letter sent
from HESA to Data Protection Officers at all UK HE Institutions.
Anne Deverell
Data Protection Manager
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
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You may be aware that the Chief Executive of HESA has recently advised all
HEI Chief Officers of the HESA Board endorsement for the release of actual
names to Statutory Customers, in order for them to carry out their statutory
functions in relation to the funding of education.
Consequent to this decision, and with reference to responsibilities under
current Data Protection legislation (Data Protection Act 1998), it is
accordingly necessary for HESA and for HEIs to update relevant
documentation, this work is in progress.
The purpose of my writing now is to give you some further reassurance in
respect of implementation of this change in practice.
You will be aware that {since 1994/95} HESA has collected the full name of
individual students in the Student Record - student names have always been
needed to ensure the data collection process runs smoothly.
In recent years more emphasis has been given to the integrity of the Student
Record at the individual record level. Thus record matching and linkage have
become increasingly valuable attributes of the HESA Student Record.
Previously names have been converted to SOUNDEXed form before being passed
to statutory customers (SCs). It is however generally recognised that
matching on SOUNDEXed names is less reliable than matching on actual names.
Therefore actual names are now supplied to Statutory Customers and used in
record linking, also in support of audit processes.
It remains the case that the data in the HESA Student Record will be used
primarily for statistical analysis, by HESA and Statutory Customers. This
use may result in the publication and release of data to other approved
users, which may include academic researchers and commercial bodies.
Precautions are however taken to minimise the risk of identification of
individuals from the published and released data.
Neither HESA nor its Statutory Customers intend to use names to either
contact students or affect students personally in any way. Access to names
within HESA and its Statutory Customers is restricted to essential staff
only.
In respect of associated documentation, the Student Record Collection notice
has been revised and is available from the HESA web site at
<http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dataprot/collnotices.htm>. The fuller guidance notes
are to be amended in consultation with Statutory Customers, and will
therefore be published as soon as is practicable.
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