Collection and use of education information
Learn how we collect and report on information about Ontario’s elementary and secondary school systems, and understand how we protect your privacy and uphold privacy laws.
Overview
We collect, analyze and report on information about our elementary and secondary school systems to:
- help us develop education policies, programs and practices that are based on evidence and data
- appropriately allocate funding for school boards, which we determine based on information that schools boards provide
- track improvements that we make to the education system, identify areas that require further improvement, and analyze trends and identify future needs
We only collect information to meet our obligations under the Education Act (the Act). This includes:
- administering the Act and its regulations to implement policies and guidelines
- ensuring compliance with the Act, its regulations and the policies and guidelines
- planning or delivering programs or services that the ministry provides or funds, which includes:
- allocating resources
- evaluating or monitoring
- tracking student outcomes and transitions to post-secondary education and/or training
- detecting, monitoring and preventing fraud or any unauthorized receipt of services or benefits
- planning, delivering or providing for financial assistance related to extended day programs, which includes:
- allocating resources
- evaluating or monitoring
- detecting, monitoring and preventing fraud or any unauthorized receipt of services or benefits
- risk management, error management or activities to:
- improve or maintain the quality of the programs or services that the ministry provides or funds, in whole or in part
- improve or maintain the quality of extended day programs
- improving or maintaining the provision of financial assistance related to extended day programs
- researching and statistical activities that relate to education and are conducted by or on behalf of the Ministry
What information we collect
We collect information about students and educators from several sources, including:
- publicly funded elementary and secondary schools, school boards and school authorities
- private elementary and secondary schools that have notified us of their intention to operate
- agencies, institutions, or organizations through data sharing agreements, including:
- Offord Centre for Child Studies
- Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO)
- children's aid societies
- ministries, agencies, institutions, organizations or individuals as required
Notice of indirect collection of education data
Since we collect information from organizations, instead of directly from the individuals to whom the information relates, we call this an indirect collection of information.
If any information that we collect relates to an identifiable individual, such as an individual student or educator, we consider it to be personal information. Under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, personal information is recorded information about an identifiable individual.
Learn more about how we handle personal information.
Summary of the personal information that we collect
Here is the list of personal information that we collect for educators and students.
Educator
- Ministry Educator Number (MEN)
- biographical information
- name
- gender
- date of birth
- Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) Number
- school-level aggregate data related to communicable diseases within the meaning of the Health Protection and Promotion Act (including COVID‑19)
Educator employment history
- School Educator Assignment information (including position type, courses taught and Full Time Equivalency (FTE))
- admission from and transfers/retirements
- Letter of Permission (LOP)
- Temporary Letter of Approval (TLA)
- performance appraisal (including New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP))
Students
- Ontario Education Number (OEN)
- biographical information:
- name
- gender
- date of birth
- place of birth (country or province)
- country of origin (if not place of birth)
- year of entry
- voluntary, First Nation, Métis and Inuit student self-identification information
- postal code
- status in Canada
- if the student is in the care of a Children’s Aid Society
- school-level aggregate data related to communicable diseases within the meaning of the Health Protection and Promotion Act (including COVID‑19)
Student education history
- school enrolment (admissions information including school name, grade, enrolment start and end dates)
- attendance
- achievement:
- credits
- marks
- diploma/certificates
- Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR)
- report card
- community hours
- dual credits
- program information:
- regular
- special education
- second language (English, French, Native)
- supervised alternative learning (SAL)
- extended day program
- Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM)
- Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP)
- Indigenous Graduation Coach Program
- Graduation Coach Program for Black students
- suspensions/expulsions (occurrence information)
- Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) assessment
How we collect information
We collect most of our data from schools, school boards and school authorities, and not directly from the individual the information relates to.
Schools, school boards and school authorities collect data for their own purposes and can include things like student attendance, student achievement, course choices and special needs.
The Ontario Education Number (OEN) and the Ontario School Information System (OnSIS) help us generate accurate, reliable statistics.
Ontario Education Number
Each student in Ontario’s elementary, secondary and post-secondary education system is assigned a unique number called the Ontario Education Number (OEN).
A student’s OEN is a nine-digit number that schools randomly assign to students using the ministry’s Ontario Education Number (OEN) Registry which is a web-based application. A student’s OEN number is used as the key identifier for school records and will remain the same through their elementary , secondary and post-secondary education.
The OEN number:
- makes it easier to keep reliable records and monitor progress through elementary and secondary school, while protecting privacy
- avoids errors and confusion that can happen when names are misspelled, changed, or mistaken for other similar names
- facilitates the collection and analysis of accurate and timely data about education in Ontario
The OEN is used on:
- student records, including your Ontario Student Record (OSR) folder and related forms
- applications for enrolment in an education program, school or institution
- assessments, tests and evaluations
Access to the data in the OEN Registry system is strictly limited to authorized users and is maintained by the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry of Education maintains accountability of a central OEN Registry that permits authorized users to validate and request assignment of a student’s Ontario Education Number. The OEN Registry does not contain information on a student’s academic performance. It is an offence to collect, use, or disclose or require the production of another person’s OEN except as permitted by the Education Act, Section 16 of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act, 1990, or otherwise by law.
OnSIS – the Ontario School Information System
The Ontario School Information System (OnSIS) is a web-based application, which integrates and collects board, school, student, educator as well as course and class data, at the elemental level. The purpose of this application is to gather accurate and reliable data, which is then protected by Ontario's strict privacy legislation and a rigorously controlled security system. This data is stored, integrated and depersonalized.
How we handle personal information
We protect any personal information that we collect in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.31, and with the following restrictions:
- We only collect and use personal information if other information will not serve the intended purpose.
- All records containing personal information are maintained in a secure and limited access environment. For example:
- we use secure and password-protected technology to transmit any records containing personal information
- data is transferred electronically to the Ministry to maximize the accuracy of information, thereby reducing the possibility of human data entry error
- only a limited number of authorized Government of Ontario staff have access to records with personal information
- school boards and other organizations that provide data ensure the accuracy of personal information prior to transferring the information to the Ministry
- redundant data is eliminated
- In most cases we can gather the information we need after depersonalizing the data to remove identifiers and all of the sensitive fields that could lead to the identification of an individual.
- Records are destroyed in a secure manner when no longer required.
- We retain the data in a secure environment and act as the gatekeeper for requests from other researchers or users who want to see the data. In most cases, these users would only obtain access to data in a depersonalized format, meaning that the data would not contain personal identifiers.
- Unless required by law, it is our policy to not publicly report aggregate data if the data relates to fewer than ten individuals. This is an extra precaution taken to protect privacy.
- Unless required by law, we do not publicly report information collected to the public if the number of students involved is so small that the individual might be identifiable, even though individual results don't include student names. The ministry uses depersonalized data for public resources and reports.
- We may be required to disclose personal information to Statistics Canada.
Verifying data
When we collect personal information indirectly, we first verify that it is accurate. To do this, we use educator and student biographical information to ensure that the correct Ministry Educator Number (MEN) or Ontario Education Number (OEN) has been reported.
Depersonalizing information
To ensure the security and confidentiality of personal information, we depersonalize the personal information that we collect indirectly by:
- verifying that the personal information matches our provincial data
- removing and securely destroying identifiers and all of the sensitive fields (such as first name, last name, gender and date of birth) that could lead to the identification of an individual from the copy of the data
- encrypting the remaining Ontario Education Number data on a copy of the data to create a depersonalized data set
- loading the depersonalized data into a data warehouse
- securely destroying the source files (that is, the files containing personal information) immediately afterwards
Some examples of how we use depersonalized data include:
- education facts
- school board progress report
- school board profiles
- suspensions and expulsions
- open data catalogue
Disclosing personal information
We may be required to disclose personal information to Statistics Canada in accordance with the Statistics Act (Canada) and s. 42(1)(e) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Ontario).
Statistics Canada integrates Ontario student data with Statistics Canada’s datasets, such as the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS), the Registered Apprenticeship Information System (RAIS) and the T1 Family File (T1FF). The integrated data will be available through an anonymized dataset accessible through the Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform (ELMLP). Only aggregated and non-identifying statistical information on students is made publicly available and as such, individuals will not be personally identifiable in any product disseminated to the public.
Legal basis to collect information
The ministry has the authority to collect personal information, directly or indirectly, under subsection 8.1(1) of the Education Act, R.S.O. 1990 c. E.2.
We are bound by privacy protection rules under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) and take all necessary steps to safeguard the personal information that we collect.
Individuals have a right to access their own personal information under FIPPA.
For further information, please contact:
Stakeholder Relations and Data Collection Unit
Education Data Branch (EDB)
Ministry of Education
777 Bay Street, 4th Floor, Suite 422
Toronto Ontario
M5G 2E5
Monday to Friday (excluding holidays)
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST
Email: onsis_sison@ontario.ca or oen_niso@ontario.ca