61–70 of 176 posts
Lots of people here not really understanding how this works in the UK. A few times there's been a big media stories in the UK about a child who got badly abused or killed in domestic situations and then afterwards it turns out that various people (social services, teachers, charities etc) had concerns about the child's safety but concerns weren't written down or joined together and so the child could have been saved/…
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It's the UK term for the person in any organisation that deals with vulnerable people (children, patients, disabled people, old people) that has the responsibility of taking any allegations, concerns, accusations and making sure they are dealt with properly. That means documenting, investigating, and escalating to the authorities.
Shouldn't that be a lawyer normally? It sounds like they have a great potential to violate human rights.
In the US the fundamental Christians are grabbing power and they're taking flamethrowers to books and talking about tracking women who may go across state-lines to get an abortion. Self-censorship for fear of being 'canceled' is putting a damper on the spirit of freedom. It's perhaps more along the lines of Fahrenheit 451.
May you live in interesting times.
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Predatory teachers may use this to get some background details on their targets or to identify potential targets for grooming. Luckily those kinds of teachers are rare, but not unknown. Also, some police are known to be racist, so if a certain officer gets it in their head to harass a nationality or ethnic group, then their unsubstantiated accusations would be entered into the database and this could then affect the…
If the safeguarding lead at a school is a predatory teacher looking for grooming targets, the existence of databases is the least of kids' problems. Particularly if the database is mainly flagging up kids that might already be at risk of abuse. Predatory individuals who are not safeguarding leads benefit much more from people campaigning to silo any records that suggest/confirm they might be a threat.
The secretive approach to this is unsettling, because it implies they know they're doing something they'd get in trouble for. It sounds like the administration's response was "well, this app was public, parents could have read up on it if they wanted", which resembles the old better to ask forgiveness than permission tactic. Clearly, every part of this plan should have been proactively explained to parents beforehand.
Lots of people here not really understanding how this works in the UK. A few times there's been a big media stories in the UK about a child who got badly abused or killed in domestic situations and then afterwards it turns out that various people (social services, teachers, charities etc) had concerns about the child's safety but concerns weren't written down or joined together and so the child could have been saved/…
Think Family Database (TFD)
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The Think Family Database (TFD) supports and connects safeguarding professionals from Bristol City Council and other public sector organisations.
The data collected by Insight Bristol is securely held in the TFD, and includes information from approximately 50,000 families across Bristol.
The TFD pulls together data from several public sector sources including:
-Bristol City Council (Children Social care, Early Help, Education)
-Avon and Somerset Police
-Department for Education
-Department for Work and Pensions
-South West Commissioning Support Unit (SWCSU)
The data from these organisations displays vulnerabilities or needs. It gives practitioners working with families an understanding of:
-the family's immediate need
-which services the need comes from
The practitioner can contact the relevant service. This helps the practitioner better support the family because:
-the practitioner can discuss the family's immediate issues with the agencies involved
-the family does not have to repeat the same story
This embedded approach helps practitioners coordinate support for families who are most in need. Sometimes those families are obvious but often they are hidden. The TFD highlights the hidden issues.
Using targeted analytics, the system also helps identify children at risk of:
-sexual exploitation
-criminal exploitation
-not being in education, employment, or training
This information supplements the wider council Think Family approach.
These models do not replace professional judgement or decision-making. They guide and supplement the work of professionals and provide information about children at risk that professionals may not easily see. This early identification means that support and interventions can be put in place to stop problems turning into crises.
The title made it sound like the schools were installing malware on students' devices, but as far as I can tell this is just a central database bringing together data from different government agencies. I'm not sure I see the problem with schools getting an update that a kid was arrested by police or that their family is on food aid or something. Schools in my area need to know which kids are living in poverty becaus…
> just a central database bringing together data from different government agencies I realize this is a US perspective, but this actually sets off more alarm bells in my head than a school overreaching by installing spyware. The latter can be addressed by direct parental action pretty easily. Government agencies systematically sharing data is a lot harder to solve and if anything is more dangerous. Just because a fam…
Fighting against this type of data sharing on principle will probably fail because there are some legitimate use cases to Keep the Children Safe for this type of data.
It'll be hard, however, to push back a request that all data access requests are logged with justifications because, after all it helps to Keep the Children Safe.
You might also discover that the appetite for this data might wane entirely if they can't access it without being monitored and without having to justify themselves.
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Predatory teachers may use this to get some background details on their targets or to identify potential targets for grooming. Luckily those kinds of teachers are rare, but not unknown. Also, some police are known to be racist, so if a certain officer gets it in their head to harass a nationality or ethnic group, then their unsubstantiated accusations would be entered into the database and this could then affect the…
> Also, some police are known to be racist Worse yet, most police are at least classist. Poor neighborhoods are policed far more heavily than wealthier neighborhoods. What happens when there's already heavy policing of poorer neighborhoods, and police are trained to "get the bad ones off the streets"? They look for any excuse to arrest and prosecute people in those neighborhoods. Once you have a felony conviction on…
I see this sentiment often. If this were true it would represent a criminal opportunity to victimize "wealthier neighborhoods." As far as I can tell: that does not seem to be the case very often; and victimization rates are higher in "poor neighborhoods."
I can see the logic of an argument that excessive legal criminalization induces cycles of harmful involvement in law enforcement and legal systems. However, using the language "policed far more heavily" as opposed to "criminalized far more heavily" places the blame on a convenient-to-scapegoat blue-collar occupation rather than directly upon the powerful people who compose the ever-expanding encyclopedia of laws and regulations.
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When you give someone a power, always consider that it will basically always be used in the worst imaginable way. Regardless of any and all lip service to the contrary.
For example, if you allow ordinary people to operate heavy automobiles, somebody is going to use one to intentionally kill somebody else. Did you think about that before you unleashed millions of these killing machines? I'm not excited about developments in Bristol, but introducing extreme paranoia isn't helpful. Just a low level of healthy paranoia is good enough.
Also, at least where I am, the drunk driving rates are high enough, that murder-by-car isn't exactly uncommon.
I don't think your counter-argument hits as hard as you think it does.
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The kids aren't already there during the summer . As the GP pointed out.
Neither are the teachers. This is why having the teachers act as a social security service is a poor idea.
Nevertheless, the organisation of services to provide free food to selected kids at home and at school requires a database to record which kids. Such a database is also accessible to schools for obvious reasons.
If you have the very HN-y opinion that being on a database is so bad it would be better if the kids stayed hungry that's fine, but please at least make a token attempt to understand a system before dismissing it.