Shall microdata be collected for children?
As participants aged up to 18 can already participate in ESF operations in the 2014-2020 period, Member States should first consider their current national practices in terms of data collection for minors. For operations under specific objectives (a) to (l) not targeting the most deprived (Annex I of the ESF+ Regulation), the common output indicator ‘Number of children below 18 years of age’ indeed implies that microdata are required for participants who are minors. The exceptions are cases where 'common output indicators can be reported based on the target group of the operation', e.g. where the operation exclusively targets pupils. Please note that the requirements in terms of data collection for minors are the same as for all participants. For operations under specific objective (l) targeting the most deprived (Annex II of the ESF+ Regulation) and specific objective (m) (Annex III of the ESF+ Regulation), there is no need to collect individual data, as the values for all indicators can be determined based on informed estimation made by the beneficiaries. Please note that children contact details are only necessary to contact them after their participation in order to assess if their situation has changed (i.e. for the result indicators). Therefore, they do not necessarily need to refer to the participants themselves, but may refer to representatives (e.g. parents or guardians). Note however, that some sort of unique personal identifier that allows each individual to be traced is required, and this must always refer to the participants. Regarding the protection of personal data, managing authorities should liaise and discuss with the national data protection authorities in order to set up the provisions and framework for the data collection of all required monitoring data, including for minors.