Mermaids: no parental access to emails

But whatever it is I'm not sure a forum chatting to a load of strangers up to age 19 is it?

A forum chatting to a load of strangers who claim to be up to age 19.

As part of the security measures, you will be required to supply us with a telephone number, so that we can call you before we can approve you to join the group. The call will be from a witheld number, to maintain confidentiality.

Supplying personal information to someone who calls you from a withheld number, whose identity you can't verify? I wouldn't do that. Children shouldn't be doing that.

Thing is a 12 yo being rung up and asked to provide personal info, they have no frames of reference this.

Is the caller who they say they are?
Is this information that it's normal to provide to check who you are?

Thanks for the ico link.

This is relevant-
'If you are relying on consent as your lawful basis for processing, when offering an online service directly to a child, in the UK only children aged 13 or over are able to provide their own consent.
For children under this age you need to get consent from whoever holds parental responsibility for the child - unless the online service you offer is a preventive or counselling service.'

Their forum is from age 12. I don't think they can argue it's counselling. I'm not sure what preventive means? But whatever it is I'm not sure a forum chatting to a load of strangers up to age 19 is it?

All of the laws, regulations, best practices, standards etc are being ignored across these orgs. I doubt people thought they would simply be ignored by so many orgs including public sector. But here we are. And turns out, there's not actually much recourse.

This feels too grown up for 12. Supplying personal info to a stranger on the phone?

Its completely inappropriate for a children's charity.
Mermaids Charity does not understand children's Safeguarding principles & their responsibilities.

ICO guidelines specific to children's data:
ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/key-data-protection-themes/children/

All this is very, very concerning.

I used to work for a charity which helped people who were drug addicts and alcoholics, so not the same area I know, but each client was allocated a named member of staff to contact and they would then refer them to various people who were qualified to help them. I would have expected something similar with mermaids and that the parents would be involved as much as possible, not to just put vulnerable minors into a forum which is basically going to be an echo chamber.

Does anyone know if they actually have any staff who are qualified to deal with dysphoria?

Is this the same Twitter thread a parent was complaining becuase despite having unsubscribe his/her son was still receiving invites from homophobic forums or something?

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-48652970

The main thing though is that mermaids have in the past had massive data protection failures which they didn't seem to react to, with the seriousness you might expect.

Hmmm

Well other charities use a special button so they can quickly shut the page if they need to eg DV charities.

When mermaids adopted this there was a thread on here I think, a bit hmm, because it reinforced the idea that children's parents WILL react badly, will NOT be on their side etc etc

The getting children to get an email address to use is iffy though. The forum is from 12 to 19. I have a 12 yo and it's still very young. Young to be getting burner emails to access sites their parents don't know about. Because after mermaids, they know how it's done and could use it for other means.

Re checking the site says this

'If you would like to join the youth group you will need to read and agree to follow the rules and code of conduct, plus supply us with a certain amount of personal information so we can verify your identity and make sure that your application is genuine.'

'As part of the security measures, you will be required to supply us with a telephone number, so that we can call you before we can approve you to join the group. The call will be from a witheld number, to maintain confidentiality. If you would prefer, you can supply us with a Skype ID as an alternative contact means, but we will still need the telephone number for our security checks.'

This feels too grown up for 12. Supplying personal info to a stranger on the phone?

The forum is open 12 to 19 which feels like too large a range as well.

Eurgh.

*admitting

They don't - they have no idea at all if it's adults posing as children to find out how their moderates speak to the children or whether there are predatory adults posing as children.

There have been data breaches in their chat rooms for the latter I believe. They have a chat room for parents and a separate one for children/under 18s.

I won't post them but the screen shots I've seen show them admiring to not being medical professionals and at the same time they advise them as if they were.

Mermaids are a safeguarding nightmare.

They have a button on their website that children can press if someone comes into the room and they don't want them to see what site their on - it takes you to a generic Wikipedia site.

It's creepy. If children are struggling with their gender identity or whatever, the usual safeguarding protocols are to encourage children to talk to their parents unless that parent has been identified as a risk. Mermaid don't have a statutory duty like for example the NSPCC. This is way beyond their remit.

This keeping secrets ethos is really alarming. It's extremely unsafe and flies in the face of well established safeguarding protocols.