Nursery wants to see our birth certificates is this normal?

[StrugglingJuggling]

My daughter has just started nursery, we are only claiming the 15 hours free. Before she started the school requested we sent in proof of her age. They then asked for her passport, our passport’s (her parents), proof of national insurance numbers and our birth certificates.

They have lost the copies they made of her birth certificate and our passports twice now and have requested them for a third time. They still want to see our birth certificates (not seen mine since 1998, husband has never seen his!).

This seems like total overkill for a free nursery place everyone is entitled to. I assumed if we were applying for 30 hours you do so through the government website and produce a code to hand into the school. We aren’t even claiming 30 hours so I’m not sure what the extensive identity checks on us are for? As for losing copies of the documents TWICE well...

I’m just wondering if they should even be requesting our daughter’s passport, what if she didn’t have one? I’m really not sure why they would need to see our birth certificates if they have our passports? It’s irritating me as I’m convinced they are just harvesting data which they clearly have issues looking after!

I think with GDPR they have to state the purpose of the data.

I think you need to put in writing (email and hard copy) your concerns about the processing and storage of your data and also your concerns over the lack of transparency as to why they require this personal data. State that you know child’s birth certificate and parents NI numbers are required for free hours but that you know parents birth certificates are not. Ask for a written reply for your own records

We don’t know where our birth certificates are, we’ve never needed them for anything since we both left home for uni, a passport has always been fine. Our parent’s still have them somewhere... so it’s half not wanting to freely give them all our info and half not actually having it to give!

I just find it mad that we could get married, apply for a mortgage, get a drivers license, register our children and not once need our birth certificate as we have in date passports. Yet this isn’t enough just to send our daughter to nursery?!

@Gilbert1A

cranky they do need ni number to check eligibility for funded places.
Love it when people categorically state stuff they don't actually know about

You’re wrong! So wrong I can wait for your apology.. YOU DO NOT need ni numbers to process 15 hours funding, you do for 30 but not 15, the op is claiming 15

Love it when people categorically state stuff they don't actually know about