Sharing isn’t safety
There is already a vast amount of information shared about children and their families, and concern about the associated harms, yet the ongoing push towards ‘frictionless’ sharing ignores the many risks. The justification is ‘safeguarding’ but children and their families will be hurt by the ways information about them is being used while protection is being watered down.
With the term ‘safeguarding’ used as a catch-all for everything from serious harm and child protection through to compliance with preferred ways of behaving it covers situations when sharing information is appropriate and needed and others when it absolutely isn’t.
The previous government even made clear – as part of parliamentary discussion on the Schools Bill – their intention that information can be stored and shared even when not in a child’s best interest, on the grounds it ‘might’ in future help. Government guidance directs that ‘public task’ rather than children or parents consent should be used for storing information. Information is being stored for up to 100 years. This big brother approach ignores all we know about the potential harms to children of sharing information about them.
Children’s human rights to privacy and to protection of their information is being trampled when what they need are measures to undo and address the damage done by years of austerity.
“…far from reducing costly family intervention through efficient targeting, mass surveillance has merely created new imperatives to act. For example, the numbers of UK children removed from their parents and placed into state care has doubled since 2011, along with a tripling of child protection investigations finding no evidence of harm.”
Professors Val Gillies and Ros Edwards and Dr Helene Vannier Ducasse
De Gruyter Oldenbourg : Calibrating families: Data behaviourism and the new algorithmic logic (2024)
“Whilst the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (2020) report into child criminal exploitation promotes the use of data collection and profiling by local areas, the analysis presented here indicates the ethical and rights impacts of such profiling work.”
Why this isn’t okay
When deciding whether to share information about a child without their consent or that of their parent or carer practitioners are being asked to decide whether doing so is proportionate in light of their Article 8 right to privacy and to data protection. Sharing information can harm children and their families. There is a long established threshold which is if there is ‘reason to suspect a child is at risk of significant harm’. There is substantial room for different interpretations of what constitutes ‘risk’ and what constitutes ‘significant harm’ but this is the threshold.
Although states have many duties around support for the child and their families – including Article 3 of the UNCRC – these positive obligations do not justify overstepping the rules about what states MUST NOT do unless the threshold is reached.
That this is so was upheld in the Supreme Court 2016 ‘Named Person’ ruling.
‘Safeguarding’ as justification for sharing
Increasingly ‘safeguarding’ is being used as a blanket justification for sharing children’s information.
There are two key concerns.
One: the definition of ‘safeguarding’ is extremely wide and it is clear from government statements during the Schools Bill House of Lords debate could include any and all information.
Two: The sharing of information can harm children and their families. The ‘sharing’ proposed does not seem to require that it is necessarily in a child’s best interests. Indeed the bizarre result of the measures included in the previous government’s Data Protection and Digital Information Bill would have seen children’s information shared under ‘safeguarding’ then not covered by data protection rights. Children’s rights to privacy and to data protection are not upheld.
“If the justification for information-sharing about children is that it is always proportionate where the purpose is to identify children who need child welfare services, there is no meaningful content left to a child’s Article 8 right to privacy and confidentiality in their personal information.”
2004 Joint Committee on Human Rights
Nineteenth Report (Examination of the then Children’s Bill 2004)
“The new policy of ‘safeguarding’ children has a much wider remit than just ‘protecting’ children from abuse or neglect. It aims to ensure all children reach the government’s ‘preferred outcomes’ in terms of achievement at school, health, and behaviour.”
“It is vital that information is shared, including without consent if necessary, if deemed relevant to protecting a child. We have serious concerns about the widening of this to any information around safeguarding, given the very broad scope of safeguarding. Confidentiality is important and there will be negative consequences for children if this is lost.”
The Victoria Climbié Foundation UK
What the ‘Named Person’ ruling said
This ruling held that the Scottish government’s ‘Named Person’ legislation was not compatible with European Convention on Human Rights and was therefore not lawful. In doing so it also upheld some fundamental principles.
“Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.”
The Supreme Court Named Person Ruling 2016 s84
(Judgement – The Christian Institute and others (Appellants) v The Lord Advocate (Respondent) (Scotland) )
- The ruling upheld the parents, not the state, have primacy in caring for their children.
- The ruling affirmed that nothing in Article 3 of the UNCRC (acting in the best interests of children and young people when making choices that affect them) could extend the state’s powers to interfere with the negative rights in Article 8 of the ECHR. Measures around increasing well-being must be consensual.
- The ruling upheld the principle that children and parent's must know that information sharing has taken place in order for them to be able to exercise their data protection rights.
“arbitrary interference by the State in private and family life without adequate safeguards – have managed to gain traction. These include mandatory reporting, extended “school census” requirements, shared childrens’ databases, multi-agency safeguarding hubs, and near-compulsory child-in-need assessments.”