Guidance

National Age Assessment Board: privacy information notice

Published 28 April 2025

An age assessment will be undertaken by National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) social workers employed by the Home Office. The purpose of this assessment is to assess your age in order to establish if you are considered a child.

Optional text: Delete unless the Privacy Notice is being issued by a local authority:

The NAAB have requested that your local authority issues you with this Privacy Notice and explains its contents to you.

End of optional text

This Privacy Notice explains how the information about you will be processed by the NAAB as part of the age assessment process, including how it will be obtained, used, stored and shared within and outside the Home Office. It also explains how your privacy will be protected in compliance with the requirements under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

By personal information, the NAAB means information which, by itself or with other data available to the NAAB, can be used to identify you.

What information the NAAB collects

The NAAB may collect some or all of the following information about you:

• name
• date of birth
• contact details
• health
• education
• immigration status
• gender
• ethnicity
• languages spoken
• family background and life history
• details of comments, concerns, opinions and information you may wish to bring to the attention of the assessing social workers

Why the NAAB collects your information

The NAAB will use your data to complete your age assessment.

Who the NAAB will share information with and collect information from

The information gathered during your assessment, will be treated in confidence and will only be shared where to do so is in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018, the GDPR, and the duty to ensure that the NAAB’s functions are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote your welfare, including that your best interests are a primary consideration.

The information about you collected as part of the process for assessing your age, may be obtained and shared in the following ways if necessary for the assessment of your age:

• If you are looked after by a local authority, the NAAB social workers will need access to relevant parts of the social care file your local authority holds for you.
• The NAAB, or a local authority on the NAAB’s behalf, may contact other parties to obtain information relevant to the assessment of your age where it is safe and appropriate to do so:
  • This may include, but may not be limited to, family members, foster carers, residential care workers, keyworkers, schoolteachers, panel advisors, doctors, solicitors/legal representatives, interpreters, and other individuals and professionals you have encountered since you arrived in the United Kingdom.
  • This may also include other UK government departments or agencies, local authorities, international organisations and, in some cases, the authorities of your own country and the authorities of other countries through which you have travelled before your arrival in the UK.
  • The information which may be shared with these parties in order to obtain information relevant to your age, includes the following: names, date of birth, nationality, place of birth and identification numbers.
• Information will not be shared with other parties, including your country of origin, if it risks putting the life or integrity of you or your family members in danger or is not in accordance with the Home Office’s policies on international data sharing.
• If you have claimed asylum, neither the details of your claim for asylum nor the fact that you have made such a claim will be shared with the authorities of your own country.
• The full age assessment will be shared with your legal representative if you request this.
• The age assessment report and other information gathered about you during the age assessment process may be provided to the local authority, if the local authority needs to know your age for the purposes of deciding whether or how to exercise any of its functions under relevant children’s legislation in relation to you, and the provision of the report is necessary to safeguard and promote your welfare or the welfare of children in the UK.
• If a local authority is not looking after you, the NAAB may notify your school and your local authority of the conclusion of the age assessment.
• Information relevant to safeguarding may be passed to another agency where the NAAB are concerned about your safety or the safety of another person.
• The NAAB will notify the Home Office team responsible for considering your immigration application of the outcome of the age assessment (for example, the age the NAAB has assessed you to be and when this decision was made). Further information will not be shared with them unless:
  • it is required for them to take necessary safeguarding action; or
  • your legal representatives requests that information is shared with them for the purposes of decision-making on your immigration application and you provide written consent for this information to be shared.
• Information gathered during the assessment may be shared with the Home Office team which disputed your claimed age when you first arrived in the UK, if this information is necessary for the purposes of improving the quality of future decisions on age based on physical appearance and demeanour.
• Information may be passed to another agency if the NAAB are directed to do so by the Courts.

The information would not be shared by the NAAB for additional purposes unless your consent is obtained. The NAAB will not speak to anyone in your country of origin without your consent.

Having access to as much relevant information as possible about you will assist the NAAB social workers to come to the most accurate decision about your age.

If you have any concerns with any of these people or agencies to be contacted as part of this age assessment, please notify us now, including the reasons why they should not be contacted.

Storing this information

Any documents, notes or paperwork accumulated as part of this assessment will be retained by the NAAB. Information will be stored in a manner consistent with the need to prevent unauthorised disclosure or loss of the information and will be retained in line with established retention periods.

Requesting access to your personal data

Under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to request access to information that the NAAB holds about you. To make a request for your personal information, please contact the NAAB.

Further information

For further details of how your personal information will be used and who the NAAB may share it with, please see the Privacy Notice for Border, Immigration and Citizenship. This also explains your key rights under the Data Protection Act, how you can access your personal information and how to complain if you have concerns.

The NAAB reserves the right to amend this Privacy Notice at any time and will keep it under review. If the NAAB do make any changes, they will post the current version to their website: National Age Assessment Board: privacy information notice.

Your declaration

The contents of the Age Assessment Privacy Notice were explained to me by:

Their explanation has been interpreted to me in (language):

I confirm that I have understood the interpreter clearly: (Yes/No)

Please specify any individual/agency that you would like the NAAB to contact as part of this age assessment and the reasons why:

Please specify any individual/agency that you do not wish to be contacted as part of this age assessment and the reasons why:

Name:

Signature:

Date: