Information demanded on pupils in French Primary Schools

[urko]

The DfE in the UK asks schools to collect data on Primary School pupils each year. This year (in a pre-referendum decision) they decided to ask schools to ask parents the Country where each child was born.

This made me wonder - does the French system ask this?

[NormanH]

I believe it is illegal

« Il est interdit de collecter ou de traiter des données à caractère personnel qui font apparaître,

directement ou indirectement, les origines raciales ou ethniques, les

opinions politiques, philosophiques ou religieuses ou l’appartenance

syndicale des personnes, ou qui sont relatives à la santé ou à la vie

sexuelle de celles-ci. »

https://www.cnil.fr/fr/loi-78-17-du-6-janvier-1978-modifiee

[HoneySuckleDreams]

and yet when you have to fill in anything,  or present documents, they always ask for place of birth and normally a copy of a birth certificate. So I don't understand the row to be honest. Uk is different of course

 

[NormanH]

I may have mislead.

What is illegal is to collect (and list) information about racial origins and religion, hence the controversy in Béziers about the Maire commenting on the racial make-up of primary schools here, which he approximated by counting the number of Muslim-sounding forenames.

http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2015/05/05/quand-robert-menard-fiche-les-enfants-des-ecoles-de-beziers_4627511_823448.html

This is a highly sensitive area since the Occupation.

Place of birth, such as the department number, may be a different matter.

[EuroTrash]

You don't say how the data is being collected, treated and stored. Possibly this is one of the cases where collecting anonymous data for statistical purposes is OK, but what is illegal is recording data in such a way that it is linked to personal records and can be used to identify individuals. So it is fine to collect and store data indicating that out of 100 kids, X% were born in France, Y% were born in Syria, Z% were born in the UK etc. It is not fine to store the data in such a way as to be able to produce lists of names..