This is a working draft prepared to describe how the Future Skills Passport actually handles data. It should be reviewed by a data protection professional before it is published or relied upon.
The Future Skills Passport asks a pupil for a first name or nickname, their age, an avatar and a 4-digit PIN they choose themselves. It saves the lessons they complete so their progress isn’t lost. It does not ask for surnames, dates of birth, addresses or photos. It shows no adverts, does no tracking, and pupil data is never sold. A teacher can see their own class’s progress and PINs; no pupil can see another pupil’s data, name or PIN.
The Future Skills Passport is an online learning programme for primary-school pupils, provided by Spark2 Education. If you have any question about this notice or about how data is handled, contact us at hi@spark2.org.
This notice explains the personal data involved when a pupil or a teacher uses the Future Skills Passport web app — what is collected, why, where it is kept, and the choices and rights people have. It sits alongside the general Spark2 website privacy policy.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| A display name (first name or a nickname) | So the pupil and their teacher can recognise their work. |
| The pupil’s age | So the programme is set up appropriately for their age. A single age number only — never a full date of birth. |
| A chosen avatar | A friendly picture for the pupil’s passport. No real photographs. |
| A 4-digit PIN the pupil chooses | So the pupil can sign back in on a shared or new device. The PIN is shown only to the pupil and to their class teacher. After three wrong PIN attempts the account is locked for five minutes; the teacher can unlock or reset the PIN from their dashboard at any time. |
| Lesson progress and scores | So a pupil’s progress is saved and follows them, and so their teacher can see how the class is getting on. |
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| An email address | To create the teacher’s account, and to send a one-time link to sign in. There is no teacher password. |
| Class names they create | To organise the teacher’s classes and class codes. |
From a child, the Future Skills Passport does not ask for, and does not store:
The programme is built to collect the smallest amount of data that lets the lessons work.
Pupil and teacher information is used only to:
We do not use pupil data for advertising. We do not carry out behavioural tracking or profiling of children. We do not sell pupil data or share it with marketing partners — ever.
When the Future Skills Passport is used by a school, the school is the data controller — it decides that pupils will use the programme — and Spark2 Education acts as the school’s data processor, handling the data on the school’s instructions under a written Data Processing Agreement.
When the programme is used by a family at home, Spark2 Education is the data controller, and the parent or carer agrees to this notice when their child uses the programme.
Pupil data is tied to the class it belongs to. At the end of a school year a class is archived and then deleted unless the school renews. A teacher can delete a class — and all the pupil records within it — at any time. Where Spark2 is the processor, data is also deleted on the school’s instruction.
Because the Future Skills Passport is used by children, it is designed to follow the principles of the UK Information Commissioner’s Age Appropriate Design Code (the “Children’s Code”). In practice this means: collecting the minimum data, the most privacy-protective settings on by default, plain-language information, and no techniques designed to nudge children into giving more data.
Pupils, and parents or carers on their behalf, have rights over personal data — including the right to ask for a copy of it, to have it corrected, or to have it deleted.
Where a school is using the programme, the school is the data controller, so a request should be made to the school in the first instance; Spark2 will support the school in responding. For home use, or any other question, contact Spark2 directly at hi@spark2.org.
We do not sell or rent personal data. To run the service we use a small number of trusted providers (“sub-processors”) — principally our database and hosting provider. These providers act on our instructions, and the current list is available from us on request and named in the Data Processing Agreement schools sign.
The Future Skills Passport does not use advertising or tracking cookies. To work, the app stores a pupil’s progress and a secure sign-in token in the browser’s local storage on the device being used. This is necessary for the programme to function and to save the pupil’s work.
If we change how the Future Skills Passport handles data, we will update this notice and change the date below. Significant changes will be communicated to schools directly.
Questions about this notice or about how data is handled: hi@spark2.org. If you have a concern we have not resolved, you also have the right to contact the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).