This legislation hands sweeping, unchecked powers to current and future governments, eroding children’s rights to privacy, family life, and data protection. An open letter warning that the Bill poses a “grave threat” to these rights, to the safety of children and to society is supported by leading experts on child protection, and experts in use of data and AI across children’s services as well as groups representing those who will be most impacted.

Bill will significantly increase the existing harms of data sharing

• The government’s Child Rights Impact Assessment identifies “negative impacts, such as in relation to right to privacy”. Assessment of these as “off-set” disregards extensive evidence of significant life-long negative impacts of data sharing including for ‘safeguarding’ with worst impacts on those who are Black or racialised, Muslim, those who are disabled or who live in poverty.

• Wider unintended consequences are a threat to all children and their families. Cyber security and data breaches such as the recent legal aid breach are a significant threat. Evidence shows concerns around confidentiality stop children seeking help and parents accessing support and services. Risk of interference with rights, including right to health.

Concerns with clauses in the Bill

Clause 4: Duty to share information and use of a consistent identifier

• Provides “a clear legal basis for sharing information without consent” on broad grounds of “relevant to safeguarding or promotion of welfare”. As identified in the Christian Institute legal opinion: “Relevance is a relatively low threshold: information may be relevant but of little significance. A test of potential relevance fails to recognise the need to weigh the importance of the disclosure in achieving a legitimate aim against the importance of the interference with the individual’s right to respect for her private and family life.”

• Lack of transparency as to what the clause allows- Stated plans to link to “wider areas such as  local authority data feeds” in 2026 and for incremental linking to other agencies go beyond scope of initial pilot in Wigan

• Misleading reassurances from government that not creating a “national database” of children means no privacy concerns. Professor Ros Edwards: “Databases have become largely irrelevant. It’s the consistent identifier that will be the ‘national database’. The child is the database and will be available nationally.” Professor Val Gillies: “The surveillance capacities and risks of what is being proposed are considerably greater than anything ContactPoint could ever have enabled.” 

Clause 31 –Children Not in School Registers

• Legal opinion (Christian Institute) raises concerns about proportionality, especially the requirement under threat of criminal sanctions to provide non-anonymised, detailed data. Time and activity-based limitations rejected so could include evenings, weekends, and holidays. 

• The blank cheque of “any other information the local authority considers appropriate” in addition to extensive information requirements is dangerously broad. 

• The expectation that local authorities may conduct home visits without cause for concern or meaningful consent raises serious human rights concerns. Home visits in the case of families of disabled children seeking support are evidenced as intrusive and distressing.

Clause 30 – Requirement of consent from local authorities to remove children from school

• Giving local authorities the power to decide if school is in a child’s “best interests” risks undermining long-standing parental primacy, a core aspect of children’s rights. Existing safeguards already address concerns about child safety. 

• Powers especially concerning for children in special schools, where parents are often in dispute with the same local authorities with 95% of local authorities decisions overturned in tribunal.

Dangerous lack of transparency

• There has been no consultation with children or parents about the information sharing or identifier powers (clause 4). Research shows limited social license as does public concern around digital identity systems. 

• Bill is broad and vague, and heavily reliant on “Henry VIII” powers which lack oversight. 

• Claims that it would have prevented tragedies like the death of Sara Sharif are not evidence-based and have been used to justify the Bill’s “rushed” passage. 

• There has been little scrutiny of how the Bill intersects with:
  • The recently passed Data Use and Access Act, which weakens children’s protections and increases risks from dangerous uses of AI.
  • Police systems, such as the Home Office’s Law Enforcement Data Service and Bedfordshire Police’s use of Palantir system Nectar, given confirmation consistent identifier will be used.
  • The Prevent programme, where expanded powers targeting children raise serious civil liberties concerns. Notably, the Elective Home Education team sits within the Counter Extremism and Non-School Division of the DfE.

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