• Ipsos (market research) Limited is a specialist research agency, commonly known as “Ipsos”. Ipsos is a member of the Market Research Society, and as such we abide by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct and associated regulations and guidelines. Ipsos is responsible for collecting the data for the Children of the 2020s Study.
• University College London (UCL) is a leading university in London and is home to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which sits within UCL’s Institute of Education. UCL is responsible for designing and managing the Children of the 2020s Study as a whole. It is also responsible for the Children of the 2020s BabySteps app.
• The Department for Education (DfE) is the government department responsible for education policy and childcare. The DfE has commissioned the Children of the 2020s Study and is ultimately responsible for the safe keeping of your data.

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 using the details at the end of this privacy notice 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 the details at the end of this privacy notice.

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.

At the beginning of the study, Ipsos (the data processor) was securely sent the contact details (parent name, your child’s name, child’s date of birth and address) contained in your child’s Child Benefit Record held by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in order to carry out the research. The DfE (the data controller) has an agreement in place with HMRC in order for Ipsos to securely receive these details. HMRC shared this personal data with Ipsos so we could invite your family to take part in the first survey of the study that took place between June and November 2022.

For subsequent Children of the 2020s Study surveys, Ipsos (the data processor) will invite you to take part using personal data that has been collected in one of the following ways:

• You very kindly took part in the first survey of the Children of the 2020s study when your child was around 9 months old and gave us your contact details (email address and/or home address) so we could contact you about the study in future.
• You did not take part in the first survey of the Children of the 2020s study, but your partner or your child’s other parent either:
  • Sent on information about this next survey to you themselves via letter or email
  • OR provided your name, email, mobile phone number, and/or postal address to us so that we could invite you to take part in this survey directly.

Most of the personal data that we hold has been and/or will be collected during a Children of the 2020s survey and comes directly from you (e.g., full contact details, survey responses, research data). We will be collecting the following:

• Information that directly identifies you such as your name and contact details.
• Sensitive or ‘special category personal data’ about you (e.g., details about your ethnicity, religious beliefs, information about your health).

The table below outlines the different types of data we will be processing as part of this study and why.

Ipsos, UCL and the DfE will use your personal data and responses solely to inform the development of the Children of the 2020s study. Your personal details will be treated in strict confidence in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation. However, like all professional organisations, we are required by law to notify relevant authorities if we believe a child or adult is at serious risk of harm. The study results will be anonymous and not published as you are part of the Children of the 2020s pilot study. You will not be identifiable in any published datasets or 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.

Children of the 2020s online surveys will collect some information through the use of ‘cookies’. These are small files stored on your computer. These files are used as sparingly as possible and only for quality control, validation and, more importantly, to prevent us sending you reminders for an online survey you have already completed. It is possible for you to delete ‘cookies’ or to prevent their use by adjusting the browser settings on your computer.

Ipsos also automatically captures information about your operating system, display settings and browser type to ensure that the survey questionnaire is delivered in a form suited to the software your computer is using. Ipsos do not capture any other information from your computer.

We will only share data that identifies you (e.g., name, sex, address, date of birth) with a few organisations who are helping us to run the Children of the 2020s study. We only share the minimum information needed for them to complete their work.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS is a subcontractor to UCL and will host the BabySteps smartphone app. The app will store your email address 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 login details. The information you provide via BabySteps will be stored on the server for the duration of the study, and this data 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 stored there (i.e., the data collected via BabySteps). Only UCL and their subcontractor FullStack (the app tech support team) have access to your information.
• Microsoft Teams: In some circumstances, participants 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).
• Black Hawk Incentives (Corporate Gift Cards Distributor): Where eligible, you may be sent an e-voucher redemption code if you provide your email address. Hawk Incentives will hold data (i.e. email addresses and e-voucher redemption codes) for a maximum of seven years following the end of the services agreement to help resolve any issues respondents may have with their e-voucher.
• 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 to 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.

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

We take our 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 or their subcontractors who need to see it for the purpose of conducting the study. If you take part in a Microsoft Teams interview, the email address that you provide will be processed on Microsoft servers located in the EEA. Your survey responses will NOT be processed or stored on Microsoft servers.

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

Ipsos and UCL will share the pseudonymised 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.

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

• You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos and UCL hold it (contact details below). If you want to contact the DfE about data they hold about you, please see the contact details below.
• Providing responses to this study is entirely voluntary and is done so with your consent.  You have the right to withdraw your consent and to object to our processing of your personal data at any time.
• You have the right to erase (delete) your data in certain circumstances, (e.g., deleting incorrect contact details or data that are no longer required or we’re legally required to erase). If we receive a deletion request from you, we will stop collecting, linking and depositing your data.
• You also have the right to rectify any incorrect or out-of-date personal data about you which we may hold.
• If you want to exercise your rights, please contact us at the Ipsos address below.
• 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

You can get in touch with us about this study and how we are using your personal data using the details below. Please include “Children of the 2020s” in the subject line when contacting us.

For more information about how the DfE processes personal data, please see its Personal Information Charter: Personal information charter – Department for Education – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you would like any further details about the study, you can email us at children2020s@ipsos.com or leave a voicemail message on 0800 056 8184 with your unique reference number (this can be found at the top of any letter you have received from us).

This privacy notice is updated regularly and was last updated on 11.01.2023.

Ipsos (market research) Limited is a specialist research agency, commonly known as “Ipsos”. Ipsos is a member of the Market Research Society, and as such we abide by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct and associated regulations and guidelines. Ipsos is responsible for collecting the data for the Children of the 2020s study.

The University of Oxford is a leading university in Oxford. The University’s Department for Education is responsible for designing the Children of the 2020s Early Education and Care survey.

University College London (UCL) is a leading university in London and is home to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which sits within UCL’s Institute of Education. UCL is responsible for designing and managing the Children of the 2020s study as a whole.

The Department for Education (DfE) is the government department responsible for education policy and childcare. The DfE has commissioned the Children of the 2020s study and is ultimately responsible for the safekeeping of your data.

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 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 using the details at the end of this privacy notice to withdraw from the study at any time if you wish to or to exercise your individual information rights. If you withdraw from the study as a whole, any data already collected will continue to be used unless you explicitly request that we delete it using the details at the end of this privacy notice. If you request that we delete any personal identifiable information (such as name and contact details), we will delete this and stop collecting data you provided us. If you also wish to have your anonymised survey data (your answers to the survey questions) deleted, please make this request within 6 months of taking part in the survey. After that date, we are not able 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 data processors for this study. The legal basis for processing your data is ‘public task’ because the data you provide us is for research and 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, for example, the University of Oxford, is set out in the contracts between these organisations. These contracts are in place to ensure that your personal data is protected. Any personal data you provide us may only be used for this research study.

If you are a childcare provider and being contacted to take part in the Early Education and Care survey, the contact details of the provider you work for (provider name, address, phone number, and email address) were provided by consenting parents/guardians who have a child attending the provider to Ipsos for the purpose of getting in touch with you about the survey.

If you are a childcare provider and being contacted to take part in the Early Education and Care survey, the contact details of the provider you work for (provider name, address, phone number, and email address) were provided by consenting parents/guardians who have a child attending the provider to Ipsos for the purpose of getting in touch with you about the survey.

The table below outlines the different types of data we will be processing as part of this study and why.

Ipsos, the University of Oxford, UCL and the DfE will use your personal data and responses solely for research purposes and your personal details will be treated in strict confidence in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation. However, like all professional organisations, we are required by law to notify relevant authorities if we believe a child or adult is at serious risk of harm. You, your provider and any staff members will not be identifiable in any published datasets or 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.

Children of the 2020s online surveys will collect some information through the use of ‘cookies’. These are small files stored on your device. These files are used as sparingly as possible and only for quality control, validation and, more importantly, to prevent us from sending you reminders for an online survey you have already completed. It is possible for you to delete ‘cookies’ or to prevent their use by adjusting the browser settings on your device.

Ipsos also automatically capture information about your operating system, display settings and browser type to ensure that the survey questionnaire is delivered in a form suited to the software your device is using. Ipsos do not capture any other information from your computer.

We will only share data that identifies you (name, contact details) with a few organisations that are helping us to run the Children of the 2020s Early Education and Care survey. We only share the minimum information needed for them to complete their work.

• 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.

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

We take our 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 or their subcontractors who need to see it for the purpose of conducting the study. If you take part in a Microsoft Teams interview, the email address that 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 pseudonymised data collected with the DfE at the end of each survey through a secure transfer route for archival, statistical and historic research purposes. Your contact details will be stored separately from your survey responses. At the end of the study, Ipsos, the University of Oxford, 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, the University of Oxford, and UCL will take place within 12 months of the end of the contract between UCL and DfE (scheduled for April 2027) to allow time to consolidate the data and check for any errors. DfE will retain the data, including your contact details and identifiers such as video and audio recordings, indefinitely for the purposes of the Children of the 2020s longitudinal study. This will be subject to regular review.

• You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos and UCL hold it (contact details below). If you want to contact DfE about data they hold about you, please see the contact details below.
• Providing responses to this study is entirely voluntary and is done with your agreement. You have the right to withdraw your agreement and to object to our processing of your personal data at any time.
• You have the right to erase (delete) your data in certain circumstances, (e.g., deleting incorrect contact details or data that are no longer required or we’re legally required to erase).
• You also have the right to rectify any incorrect or out-of-date personal data about you which we may hold.
• If you want to exercise your rights, please contact us at the Ipsos’ address below.
• 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.

You can get in touch with us about this study and how we are using your personal data using the details below. Please include “Children of the 2020s” in the subject line when contacting us.

For more information about how the DfE processes personal data, please see its Personal Information Charter: Personal information charter – Department for Education – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you would like any further details about the study, you can email us at children2020s@ipsos.com or leave a voicemail message on 0800 056 8184 with your unique reference number (this can be found at the top of any letter you have received from us).

This privacy notice is updated regularly and was last updated on 30.04.2024.

• Ipsos (market research) Limited is a specialist research agency, commonly known as “Ipsos”. Ipsos is a member of the Market Research Society, and as such we abide by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct and associated regulations and guidelines. Ipsos is responsible for collecting the data for the Children of the 2020s Study.
•  University College London (UCL) is a leading university in London and is home to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which sits within UCL’s Institute of Education. UCL is responsible for designing and managing the Children of the 2020s Study as a whole. It is also responsible for the Children of the 2020s BabySteps app.
•  The Department for Education (DfE) is the government department responsible for education policy and childcare. The DfE has commissioned the Children of the 2020s Study and is ultimately responsible for the safe keeping of your data.

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 using the details at the end of this privacy notice 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 as a whole, any data already collected will continue to be used unless you explicitly request that we delete it using the details at the end of this privacy notice. 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, please make this request within 6 months of taking part in the survey. After that date, we are not able 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.

At the beginning of the study, Ipsos (the data processor) was securely sent the contact details (parent name, your child’s name, child’s date of birth and address) contained in your child’s Child Benefit Record held by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in order to carry out the research. The DfE (the data controller) has an agreement in place with HMRC in order for Ipsos to securely receive these details. HMRC shared this personal data with Ipsos so we could invite your family to take part in the first survey of the study that took place between June and November 2022.

For subsequent Children of the 2020s Study surveys, Ipsos (the data processor) will invite you to take part using personal data that has been collected in one of the following ways:

• You very kindly took part in an earlier survey of the Children of the 2020s study and gave us your contact details (email address and/or home address) so we could contact you about the study in future.
• You did not take part in an earlier survey of the Children of the 2020s study, but your partner living at your address or your child’s other parent did and an Ipsos interviewer visited in person and invited you to take part. Alternatively, your partner or other parent or carer may have either:

  Sent on information about this next survey to you themselves via letter or email

  OR provided your name, email, mobile phone number, and/or postal address to us so that we could invite you to take part in this survey directly.

The personal data that we collect during a Children of the 2020s survey comes directly from you (e.g., full contact details, survey responses, research data). We will be collecting the following:

• Information that directly identifies you such as your name and contact details and video recordings of you and/or your child.
• Sensitive or ‘special category personal data’ about you (e.g., details about your ethnicity, religious beliefs, information about your health).

The table below outlines the different types of data we will be processing as part of this study and why.

Ipsos, UCL and the DfE will use your personal data and responses solely to inform the development of the Children of the 2020s study. Your personal details will be treated in strict confidence in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation. However, like all professional organisations, we are required by law to notify relevant authorities if we believe a child or adult is at serious risk of harm. The study results will be anonymous and not published as you are part of the Children of the 2020s pilot study. You will not be identifiable in any published datasets or 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.

Children of the 2020s online surveys will collect some information through the use of ‘cookies’. These are small files stored on your device. These files are used as sparingly as possible and only for quality control, validation and, more importantly, to prevent us from sending you reminders for an online survey you have already completed. It is possible for you to delete ‘cookies’ or to prevent their use by adjusting the browser settings on your computer.

Ipsos also automatically capture information about your operating system, display settings and browser type to ensure that the survey questionnaire is delivered in a form suited to the software your device is using. Ipsos do not capture any other information from your device.

We will only share data that identifies you (e.g., name, sex, address, date of birth) with a few organisations who are helping us to run the Children of the 2020s study. We only share the minimum information needed for them to complete their work.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS is a subcontractor to UCL and will host the BabySteps smartphone app. The app will store your email address 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 login details. The information you provide via BabySteps will be stored on the server for the duration of the study, and this data 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 stored there (i.e., the data collected via babysteps). Only UCL and their subcontractor FullStack (the app tech support team) have access to your information.
• Microsoft Teams: In some circumstances, participants 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 to 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.
• 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 Wave 3 visit. 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. 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 be 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 this Privacy Notice.

We take our 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 or their subcontractors who need to see it for the purpose of conducting the study. If you take part in a Microsoft Teams interview, the email address that 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 and identifiers such as video and audio recordings, indefinitely for the purposes of the Children of the 2020s longitudinal study. This will be subject to regular review.

• You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos and UCL hold it (contact details below). If you want to contact DfE about data they hold about you, please see the contact details below.
• Providing responses to this study is entirely voluntary and is done with your agreement. You have the right to withdraw your agreement and to object to our processing of your personal data at any time.
• You have the right to erase (delete) your data in certain circumstances, (e.g., deleting incorrect contact details or data that are no longer required or we’re legally required to erase).
• You also have the right to rectify any incorrect or out-of-date personal data about you which we may hold.
• If you want to exercise your rights, please contact us at the Ipsos’ address below.
• 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.

You can get in touch with us about this study and how we are using your personal data using the details below. Please include “Children of the 2020s” in the subject line when contacting us.

For more information about how the DfE processes personal data, please see its Personal Information Charter: Personal information charter – Department for Education – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you would like any further details about the study, you can email us at children2020s@ipsos.com or leave a voicemail message on 0800 056 8184 with your unique reference number (this can be found at the top of any letter you have received from us).

This privacy notice is updated regularly and was last updated on 18.04.2024.

Ipsos (market research) Limited is a specialist research agency, commonly known as “Ipsos”. Ipsos is a member of the Market Research Society, and as such we abide by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct and associated regulations and guidelines.

University College London (UCL) is a leading university in London and is home to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which sits within UCL’s Institute of Education.

The Department for Education (DfE) is the government department responsible for education policy and childcare.

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 not. You can also decide whether you consent to administrative records being added to your data or not. You will have full information about the study and how your data will be used before you have to decide. You can contact us using the details at the end of this privacy notice 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 the 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 processed unless you ask that we delete it.

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.

Ipsos (the data processor) has been securely sent the contact details (parent name, your child’s name, child’s date of birth and address) contained in your child’s Child Benefit Record held by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in order to carry out the research. The DfE (the data controller) has an agreement in place with HMRC in order for Ipsos to securely receive these details. Your contact details have been provided to Ipsos, through one of the following ways:

• The parent to the child who was selected from the HMRC Child Benefit Register identified you as a caregiver to the child. The parent then EITHER:
  • Passed on information about this survey to you via letter or email
  • OR provided your name, email, mobile phone number, and/or postal address to us that we could use to invite you to take part in the survey directly.
• Your details were selected from the HMRC Child Benefit Register, and you were later identified as being eligible for invitation to this online survey.

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:

• Information that directly identifies you such as your name and contact details.
• Sensitive or ‘special category personal data’ about you (e.g., details about your ethnicity, religious beliefs, information about your health).

Ipsos, UCL and the DfE will use your personal data and responses solely for research purposes. The study results will be anonymous. 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.

This online survey will collect some information through the use of ‘cookies’. These are small files stored on your computer. These files are used as sparingly as possible and only for quality control, validation and, more importantly, to prevent us sending you reminders for an online survey you have already completed. It is possible for you to delete ‘cookies’ or to prevent their use by adjusting the browser settings on your computer.

Ipsos also automatically capture information about your operating system, display settings and browser type to ensure that the survey questionnaire is delivered in a form suited to the software your computer is using. Ipsos do not capture any other information from your computer.

We will only share your data with a few organisations who are helping us to run the Children of the 2020s study. We will need to disclose your personal data to these 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 your email address, this will allow a reset email to be sent to you if you forget your log in details. AWS will retain your data for the duration of the study, data will be erased from their systems once the study is complete (scheduled for April 2027).
• Black Hawk Incentives (Corporate Gift Cards Distributor): Where eligible, you may be sent an e-voucher redemption code if you provide your email address. Hawk Incentives will hold data (i.e. email addresses and e-voucher redemption codes) for a maximum of seven years following the end of the services agreement to help resolve any issues respondents may have with their e-voucher.
• 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 the services agreement (data deletion to be actioned by October 2023).

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

We take our 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.

Ipsos and UCL will share the pseudonymised data collected with the DfE at the end of each wave through a secure transfer route for archival, statistical and historic 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 investigate data queries. 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.

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

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.

• You have the right to access your personal data within the limited period that Ipsos and UCL hold it (contact details below). If you want to contact the DfE about data they hold about you, please see the contact details below.
• Providing responses to this study is entirely voluntary and is done so with your consent.  You have the right to withdraw your consent and to object to our processing of your personal data at any time.
• You have the right to erase (delete) your data in certain circumstances, (e.g., deleting incorrect contact details or data that are no longer required or we’re legally required to erase). If we receive a deletion request from you, we will stop collecting, linking and depositing your data.
• You also have the right to rectify any incorrect or out-of-date personal data about you which we may hold.
• If you want to exercise your rights, please contact us at the Ipsos address below.
• 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

For more information about how the DfE processes personal data, please see its Personal Information Charter: Personal information charter – Department for Education – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you would like any further details about the study, you can email us at children2020s@ipsos.com or leave a voicemail message on 0800 056 8184 with your unique reference number (this can be found at the top of any letter you have received from us).

This privacy notice is updated regularly and was last updated on 30.05.2022.