Government departments and agencies collect information about all of us to help them provide the services we need. This information is stored in what are called administrative records.

It helps the Department for Education and researchers build a more complete picture of family life so we can understand the most important factors that affect children’s development in the early years.

This information is used to improve public services and for scientific research on child development.

Collecting information this way can be very valuable.

It also means we do not have to ask you so many questions in the survey.

• Children of the 2020s is a study commissioned by the Department for Education to improve our understanding of children’s development and their needs. The Department for Education collects information about families’ use of services for children and children’s progress before they start school and throughout their education.
• The Children of the 2020s study will provide important data on children’s development, family circumstances and childcare to help policymakers make improvements for the future.
• Adding information from yours and your child’s DfE education records will help researchers analyse how children’s experiences during the early years relate to their attainment in formal assessments after they start school. It helps researchers to understand more about how to support young children’s learning and development.

Education records about your child, such as:

• Early years and childcare providers your child has used
• Your child’s attainment at the Early Years Foundation Stage (in reception)

Education records about you, such as:

• Participation in school, further and higher education
• Exam results
• Vocational training and qualifications
• Higher education applications and offers

These records are kept by the Department for Education.

As these records are held outside DfE by NHS Digital we need to ask your permission to add information from your and your child’s records such as admissions or attendances at hospital and visits to GPs or other health professionals.

Children’s health is an important consideration for researchers and policy makers in its own right, and because it can affect children’s education and wellbeing.

Your health is important for understanding your needs as a parent or carer, for example, how some parent/carer illnesses can impact children’s wellbeing and how can you as a family be better supported.

Health records include admissions or attendances at hospital, visits to your family doctor or other health professionals (e.g., midwife), specific conditions and prescriptions given.

The medical and health records for all patients using NHS health services throughout their lives are held by NHS England.

• If the child’s other parent (if they live with you or elsewhere) and/or your partner (if they live with you) are available and complete their own survey, we will ask them for their permission to add information from their:
• Education records held by Department for Education to their survey answers.
• Health records held by NHS England to their survey answers.   
• The experiences of the child’s other parent and/or your partner who lives with you may also have an important impact on your and your child’s life. Adding information from their records will give us a better understanding of your family circumstances. For example, adding information from their health records will allow researchers to see the impact of parents’ health on children’s development and understand the needs of parents or carers better.

To keep your and your child’s information safe, it is encrypted and sent via secure transfer systems, in line with the most up to date security rules and procedures.

The survey answers and administrative information will be matched together and used for research purposes only.

Like your study responses, this information will be anonymised and made available securely by the Department for Education to researchers for non-commercial research and statistics. Personal data identifying you or your child are never given to these researchers.

The anonymised information will be made available securely by the Department for Education to researchers via the Office for National Statistics Secure Research Service (ONS SRS). Access to the data will only be granted after a successful application is assessed and approved by the Department for Education. This is to make sure this information is used responsibly.

All information is treated in the strictest confidence in accordance with the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The lawful basis on which we process your personal information is a ‘Task in the Public Interest’. Information about privacy, confidentiality and how we keep your information safe can be found here.

You can decide to add information from all of the records we ask about, from just some of the records, or to add nothing at all – it is your choice.

• As the Children of the 2020s is commissioned by the DfE, your and your child’s education records will be added to your survey answers as a standard part of the study. Please let us know if you do not want this to happen using the contact details here.
• We asked your permission to add your and your child’s health records to the study when you took part in the first survey when your child was about 9 months old. We will only do this if you agree that we can do so.

Your decision about whether or not to allow us to add information from your and your child’s records will not affect your or your child’s services, rights, treatment or any health insurance. It will not affect your benefits or tax. You can still take part in Children of the 2020s even if you do not give permission for your other information to be added.

The information we would like to add relates to your and your child’s past, present and future circumstances. We would like to add information from your child’s and your education and health records on an ongoing basis while the data from this study continues to be used for research and statistical analysis. You can tell us to stop at any time during the study. Once your child is an adult, they will have an opportunity to decide whether they would be happy for us to continue to add this information from these records, or not.

You can change your mind about adding information from these records and withdraw any of your permissions at any time, without giving us a reason, for the duration of the study. If you change your mind about adding information, any data already collected will continue to be processed unless you explicitly request that we delete it.

If you request that we delete any personal identifiable information (such as name and contact details), we will delete this and stop collecting and linking data you provided us. If you also wish to have your anonymised survey data (your answers to the survey questions) deleted and not deposited, please make this request within 6 months of taking part in the survey. After that date it will not be possible to remove your anonymised data from the study.

For questions about Children of the 2020s or adding other information, or to withdraw your permissions contact the team here.

Download a version of the above information here:

• Adding other information

Most of the personal data that we hold will be collected during a survey and comes directly from you (e.g., full contact details, survey responses, research data). We will be collecting the following:

1. Information that directly identifies you such as: your name (and names of other family members), contact details (for you, other family members or ‘stable contacts’) and other personal information (e.g., sex, date of birth).
2. Sensitive or ‘special category personal data’ about you, (for example: details about you/your child’s race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, information about your health).

The information you give us will be held securely and will be treated in strict confidence in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation. This information will be used solely for research purposes.

The results of this research will be anonymous, statistical information only, and you will not be identifiable in any published datasets and reports. We can assure you that any information you provide during this research will NOT be used for marketing, nor will we sell or pass on your information to any third party. If you are part of the Children of the 2020s pilot survey your data will only be used to inform the Children of the 2020s study.

SWe will share your data with certain organisations to assist us in running the Children of the 2020s study and will need to disclose your personal data to these supplier organisations for that purpose.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS is a subcontractor to UCL and will host the BabySteps smartphone app. The app will store data you enter into it (including personal data such as your email address, names, and date of birth of your child), and send it securely to the study server, which is in London and is owned and managed by AWS; this will allow a reset email to be sent to you if you forget your log in details. All the information you enter into the BabySteps app will be stored on the server for the duration of the study, and will be erased from their systems once the study is complete (scheduled for April 2028). AWS manages the physical infrastructure of the server, but does not have access to the data you enter into BabyStep. Only UCL and their subcontractor FullStack (the app tech support team) have access to your information.

• Microsoft Teams: In some circumstances, you can choose to take part in the survey via video call using Microsoft Teams. If so, your email address, when collected for the purpose of inviting you to take part in a MS Teams call, will be deleted from the Electronic Contact Sheet (Dimensions) system within 48 hours of taking part in the survey. After deletion your email address will be permanently removed from Microsoft servers within 31 days (please note this is separate to any personal data that might be collected within the survey itself).

• Textlocal: We may contact you via text message about the study, if you have provided your mobile number. Textlocal will hold data (mobile number and survey login code) for a maximum of 12 months following the end of each survey.

• FullStack: Fullstack is a US app development company contracted by UCL to develop the BabySteps smartphone app. Fullstack will have access to the London-based AWS server (where personal data collected via the app is stored) in order to maintain the app and respond to any user queries about the app. They will not remove or store any of your information from the server.

• Criteria Ltd: If you have been recruited to take part by Criteria Ltd they will have securely sent your personal details (name, email, mobile phone and/or postal address) to Ipsos to be used to invite you to take part in the pilot. Criteria will delete your data 6 months after the pilot has taken place, unless you have agreed to being recontacted to take part in future pilots.

• Delosis Ltd: Delosis Ltd is a subcontractor to UCL and hosts Psytools which is a software package for the administration of the touch-screen based developmental tasks that are part of the Age 3 research activities. The software will store your child’s first name, a unique identifying code, the date and time the task was completed and your child’s responses to the tasks (as recorded by the touch screen). This information is securely synced to the Delosis server, which is in London, UK. Delosis will securely send this data to UCL via UCL’s Data Safe Haven. Only UCL and their subcontractor Delosis (the tech support team) will have access to your information. The information you and your child provide via Psytools will be stored on the Delosis server until the processing of the Wave 3 data is complete (scheduled for September, 2025). Once the data have been processed, they will be erased from Delosis’ systems.

To ensure that the Children of the 2020s Study benefits scientific research and public policy, data from the Children of the 2020s Study will be anonymised and made available securely by DfE to suitably qualified researchers conducting legitimate research on children’s development in the public interest. Personal data identifying you or your child will never given to these researchers. Only approved individuals within the study teams at UCL, Ipsos, Oxford University, DfE or the subcontractors they work with to do the study will have access to information that identifies you or your participating child(ren).

We will keep your personal data and responses in strict confidence in accordance with the Study Privacy Notice.

We take information security responsibilities seriously and apply various precautions to ensure your information is protected from loss, theft or misuse. Security precautions include appropriate physical security of offices and controlled and limited access to computer systems.

We have regular internal and external audits of our information security controls and working practices, and are accredited to the International Standard for Information Security, ISO 27001.

All of your personal data used and collected for this study will be stored securely in data centres and servers within the United Kingdom, and will only be accessed by researchers and interviewers from Ipsos, UCL and DfE who need to see it for the purpose of conducting the study.

If you take part in a Microsoft Teams interview, the email address you provide will be processed on Microsoft servers located in the EEA. Your survey responses will NOT be processed or stored on Microsoft servers.

Ipsos and UCL will share the data collected as part of the study with the DfE at the end of each survey through a secure transfer route for research purposes. Your contact details will be stored separately from your survey responses. At the end of the study, Ipsos and UCL will destroy their copy of the data in accordance with standards and procedures set out in ISO 27001. Destruction of data held by Ipsos and UCL will take place within 12 months of the end of the contract between UCL and DfE (scheduled for April 2027) in order to allow time to consolidate the data and check for any errors. DfE will retain the data, including your contact details, indefinitely for the purposes of the Children of the 2020s longitudinal study. This will be subject to regular review.

If you take part in the pilot surveys, the information you provide will be used to help inform the design of the Children of the 2020s study’s main surveys and will be held securely by Ipsos and UCL, on behalf of the DfE.

The study team will keep your personal data and responses in strict confidence in accordance with the Study Privacy Notice.

You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos and UCL hold it. If you would like a copy of the information you provided, please email this request to children2020s@ipsos.com.

Yes. Children of the 2020s is a voluntary research study. You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide us with your personal data. You can decide whether to take part, or continue to take part, or not, and you can change your mind at any time. You can also decide whether you consent to administrative records being added to your data or not and you may change your mind about this at any time as well. You will always be provided with full information about what taking part involves at each stage of the study and how your data will be used. You can contact us here to withdraw from the study at any time if you wish to or to exercise your individual information rights.

You can withdraw from participating in a particular survey, adding information from administrative records, or the study as a whole. If you withdraw from the study, any data already collected will continue to be used unless you explicitly request that we delete it using our contact details here.

If you request that we delete any personal identifiable information (such as name and contact details), we will delete this and stop collecting and linking data you provided us. If you also wish to have your anonymised survey data (your answers to the survey questions) deleted and not deposited, please make this request within 6 months of taking part in the survey. After that date it will not be possible to remove your anonymised data from the study.

DfE is the data controller as it is the organisation that decides how and why your personal data are processed. UCL and Ipsos are the data processors for this study. The legal basis for processing your data is public task because the data you provide us is collected to help inform DfE policy development and service delivery in the future. Section 83(1)(a) of the Children Act 1989 grants the Secretary of State the power to ‘conduct, or assist other persons in conducting, research into any matter connected with his functions’ under various children’s legislation’. This legislation includes Children and Young Persons Act 2008 whose section 7 places a general duty of the Secretary of State to promote the well-being of children (persons under the age of 18) in England.

The relationship between DfE, UCL, Ipsos and the organisations that we share your data with is set out in the contracts between these organisations. These contracts are in place to ensure that your personal data is protected. The data may only be used for the purposes of this research study.

We will keep our privacy and data protection information under regular review and it will be updated at least annually.

If you wish to make a complaint, you can contact us in the following ways:

• Leave a message at Freephone 0800 056 8184
• Email children2020s@ipsos.com
• Post to Children of the 2020s Study Team, Ipsos, 3 Thomas More Square, London, E1W 1YW

If you are concerned about the handling of your personal data, you can contact the Data Protection Officer by emailing compliance@ipsos.com, or posting a letter to Data Protection Officer, Compliance Department, Ipsos, 3 Thomas More Square, London, E1W 1YW, United Kingdom.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), if you have concerns on how we have processed your personal data. You can find details about how to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by sending an email to: casework@ico.org.uk.

If you wish to make a complaint about the conduct of the study you can contact the Chair of the UCL Research Ethics Committee by emailing: ethics@ucl.ac.uk or writing to: Office of the Vice-Provost (Research), University College London, 2 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BT.

When you contact us to exercise your right, we will:

• Acknowledge that your request has been received.
• Write to tell you if your request is not applicable and give the reasons.
• Act on your request within the time period required by the current data protection law.
• Write to inform you if we need to extend the period of time required to respond due to the complexity.

Here are some key resources you can download if needed.

• Children of the 2020s study privacy notice (HTML and PDF).
• Pilot survey privacy notice (HTML and PDF).

Find more information about pilot surveys here.

The Department for Education (DfE) have funded the Children of the 2020s study, and have asked University College London (UCL) and Ipsos, an independent research organisation, to carry out this research. They will also be supported by researchers from the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and Birkbeck, University of London to deliver this study.

The Department for Education (DfE) want to find out what the early years are like for children growing up in England today. The data collected will be crucial for helping government understand how it can improve early education and childcare services for families in England like yours, and to enable scientists to better understand children’s development in the early years.

We will ask you about: who lives in your house, your employment situation (including parental leave), your child’s personality, language and health, the support you receive from people in your life, your own wellbeing, your childcare arrangements and use of services.

By taking part in Children of the 2020s, you will be helping the Department for Education (DfE) understand what it is like for children growing up in the 2020s and how to best support children and families lead happier and healthier lives in the future. Don’t miss out on the chance to help shape future policies that will support children and families like yours!

Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you can withdraw your consent to take part at any time, without having to give a reason. You can choose not to do a survey and still be part of the Children of the 2020s study. If you no longer wish to be part of the Children of the 2020s study, contact us using the Freephone 0800 056 8184 or send us an email at children2020s@ipsos.com. Any data already collected will continue to be used unless you explicitly request that we delete it.

Before each survey, we’ll write to you to tell you everything you need to know about what is involved, when the survey is taking place and how long it will take. We’ll always try to answer any questions you have. After each survey, we’ll write to thank you for taking part.

By completing the monthly research activities in the app, you’ll be eligible for e-vouchers. You, your partner (if applicable) and/or your child’s other parent (if applicable) can participate in these activities to each earn e-vouchers. Each task you complete gives you one reward point in the app, and you will receive a £5 e-voucher for every 5 reward points. Eligible tasks are released approximately once a month. Remember to allow BabySteps to send you notifications on your phone (see “How do I download the app?” FAQ below) as you will receive a notification when a new task if available.

If you are a pilot participant, please note that only a few BabySteps research activities will be available for you to complete, and any reward points you may accrue for completing BabySteps research activities will not be exchangeable for e-vouchers.

Please see our BabySteps information sheet on how to download and get started with the app. The app can be downloaded from the App Store on IOS devices, or the Play Store for Android.

To access the app for the first time, you will need your unique login ID, which you will be given during your Age 3 Children of the 2020s interview.

If you have an iPhone, we recommend checking your notification settings to help you get the most from your BabySteps app. To do this, simply follow the instructions below:

1. Click Settings
2. Click Notifications
3. Locate BabySteps in the list and click it.
4. Allow notifications.

Unfortunately, the BabySteps app research activities cannot currently accommodate families with twins/triplets. We sincerely apologise for this, and we still welcome you to download the app to keep in touch with the study team and to record precious memories of your children as they grow and develop using the ‘Baby Diary’. You are also welcome to browse the ‘News and Articles’ section of the app where you can stay up to date with the progress of the Children of the 2020s study and find regularly updated articles on the science of child development. When registering for the app, you’ll be asked to enter your child’s name. In the box provide you can enter all your children’s names separated by an “&” (for example, “Tom & Tim & John”). You’ll also be asked to add a picture of your children to personalise the app. Here you can add one photo of your children together.

If you have any questions or require any assistance to take part, please contact the UCL study team by emailing babysteps@ucl.ac.uk or calling Freephone 0203 108 2248.

BabySteps does not have access to any other information collected by your smartphone or by other apps you use on your smartphone. BabySteps cannot access your smartphone usage, nor can it track your location. The only data BabySteps can collect is that directly entered by you.