Calls to shut down ‘digital policing’ app in Bristol schools

Multiple campaign and justice groups have called for an end to a “digital policing” app which they say “reinforces the prison pipeline” in Bristol’s schools.

The app, which is used by more than 100 primary and secondary schools, allows safeguarding staff to access their students and their families’ contacts with police, child protection and welfare services.

But criminal justice campaigners, Fair Trials, who revealed the story on Wednesday, raised concerns about the risk of discrimination and surveillance.

The ‘Think Family Education’ app, was created by Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police in January this year, and is being actively used by 107 schools in Bristol, and almost 200 ‘education settings’.

The system automatically sends ‘crime incidents’ alerts – police reports about schoolchildren from the police and youth offending teams – to school safeguarding leads, as well as ‘police familial involvement’.

Schools can also use ‘predictive’ alerts from police about which schoolchildren are ‘at risk’ of criminality.

The council also intends to expand the system to schools in other local authorities beyond Bristol, including Somerset, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire councils.

A spokesperson for the council said the database is needed to ensure safeguarding information is in one place and pointed out that information about its existence is publicly available online.

But Fair Trials said many parents of the children being monitored don’t even know about the app.

Fair Trials said many parents don’t know that their children are being monitored through the app

The council requires schools to sign a user agreement to use the system, which requires they keep it “on a limited need to know basis”.

Fair Trials’ senior legal and policy officer Griff Ferris said: “Systems like this merely uphold already existing discrimination against children and families from minoritised ethnic and more deprived backgrounds, and reinforce the school to prison pipeline.

“This system is expanding the net of surveillance and criminalisation into our schools, and will lead to Bristol school children being targeted by police and drawn into the criminal justice system, while also facing suspicion, punishment and exclusion at school. It should be shut down immediately.”

The system has also raised concerns among local campaigners, No More Exclusions Bristol, who argue it criminalises young people from racialised and working class backgrounds.

“As we have seen with predictive policing, technologies that gather and use information in the name of ‘public safety’ overwhelmingly reproduce racialised ideas of problematic behaviour.

“Too often solutions to these ‘problems’ are punitive and, therefore, the covert use of intrusive monitoring is yet another indicator that, in this city, control is valued above education.”

Liz Fekete, director of the Institute of Race Relations, said: “The Think Family Education App expressly collates information on children who speak English as an additional language.

“The unthinking ease with which schools are colluding with the App’s racialised logic is more than an invasion of privacy – it is an indictment of a biased and reckless multi-agency safeguarding approach that stigmatises whole families and leaves even primary school children vulnerable to police surveillance and intelligence gathering.”

A spokesperson for Bristol City Council said: “Safeguarding the wellbeing of children and families is one of the most important duties of any local authority.

“Our nationally approved Supporting Families Programme was established in 2015 to counter the growing trend of agencies working in silos as the strain on their resources takes effect.

“As with all information contained within the Think Family Database, there are strict controls in place about who can access this information, how they do this and the reasons why.

“The app gives schools access to information from agencies they would receive in any case where there is a safeguarding concern or a child in need.

“The ability to immediately access relevant information when safeguarding concerns arise are helping schools make informed and effective decisions, in consultation with parents, carers and guardians, about the help they can provide to support vulnerable children.”

Avon and Somerset Police assistant chief constable Will White, who leads on Avon and Somerset police’s Race Matters work said: “I recognise the concerns being raised by community and campaign groups about the use of the Think Family Education app and more broadly around our use of data analytics to prevent crime and safeguard the vulnerable.

“Our motivation for using this app, in partnership with other agencies, is to protect and safeguard the most vulnerable from harm, support them and provide better services, but I understand there are concerns about disproportionality and the impact this might have on people from racially or ethnically minoritised or more disadvantaged backgrounds.

“Our Race Matters programme brings together our focussed work under the National Police Race Action Plan and our local Identifying Disproportionality report. We are looking closely at our systems and processes to understand where disproportionality exists and to take steps to reduce its impact.

“We are also building up a community network of people who are actively collaborating with us as we consult on and shape our policies that will help us to achieve our goal of becoming an anti-racist police service.

“I would welcome the opportunity to meet anyone who has concerns and to discuss our use of the Think Family database, or data more broadly, with them.

“Since 2015, the Think Family Database (TFD) has helped protect hundreds of vulnerable young people living and/or being educated in Bristol.

“The database joins up information from multiple public sector sources including the police, council, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, and social care systems, to help professionals working with young people to identify and safeguard those at risk of criminal and sexual exploitation and to improve the outcomes of those not in education, employment or training.

“The associated Think Family Education (TFE) app gives professionals from more than 100 schools in the Bristol area immediate access to this information, helping them to act swiftly on any identified risks without the delay of having to request the information from other agencies.

“Neither the database or app replace professional judgement or decision-making and they do not assess the likelihood of an individual to commit a crime.

“They provide a vulnerability-based risk score based on a number of factors including whether the young person has previously been a victim of crime and whether they have previously been reported missing.

“This score is designed to help guide and supplement the work of professionals and provide them with information about children at risk they may not easily see. We do not use ethnicity to assess risk.

“This early identification means that support and interventions can be put in place quickly to keep young people safe.

“Both the TFD and TFE app are subject to robust privacy and sharing agreements which have been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

“The Think Family approach has been subject of extensive public consultation with young people, parents and educational leaders while Insight Bristol – the collaboration of staff from Avon and Somerset Police and Bristol City Council behind the approach – worked closely with the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation to develop the database and app.”

In 2021, Bristol City Council came under fire after leaked emails revealed how council staff monitored the social media of parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

An internal report found there was “no systematic monitoring”, but was slammed as a whitewash.

All photos: Unsplash

Read next:

• Fence around school playing fields still up despite public right of way
• Inquiry into Bristol council SEND ‘spying’ scandal delayed for months
• Parents protest ‘derogatory’ treatment of pupils at school gates

Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: