The BeeWell Survey

Fully agree.

The information in the future plans section is very woolly, which sits badly against the ICO criteria in itself. Organisations are meant to be clear about what data is being used for but instead, this section talks about future ideas and is then rubberstamped as OK by the permissions wording. This isn't informed consent at all, which was another of your earlier points I think.

And yes @Szygy I agree that their data interpretation/conclusions are very concerning.

In the absence of a research protocol expert who is also a privacy law expert, I think the only way to get this the spotlight that it needs is parents informing each other. Many might be happy for their children to take part, even with the dodgy questions and linked resources, but the opt-out approach is horrendous. The difficulty of course is how to get that to enough people's attention.

Re my dismissive "bunch of randoms" comment 😁. In terms of access to specific mental and physical health data linked to children as they grow into adulthood, these people are a bunch of randoms. They have no right to access such immensely confidential personal information. They're not the NHS, medics or even educators. What legitimate reasons do they have to access and monitor a 13 year old's views and full physical and mental health history into adulthood?

If I've understood this correctly, it's a money making enterprise for the organisations involved. They're inappropriately pushing a contested ideology at children. They're promoting their view of "wellbeing" and trying to find data to support this. They'll no doubt write or commission one of their favoured organisations to produce materials to be sold to schools. They'll sell the confidential data they've accessed to others. And so on.

I'm not a data person (evidently) but am sceptical about on what authority this business is harvesting children's data and who will benefit from it in the long run? As TT have pointed out they're not bothered about accuracy of the data (see @Szygy's post at 12:49). They make claims about schools and wellbeing that lack evidence but could of course financially benefit them.

Just because an organisation dresses up their aims and financial opportunities in the language of rights and insights, doesn't actually mean that what they're doing will be of any benefit to society as opposed to lining their own pockets.

The TT article in the OP is hair-raising for all sorts of reasons. Not least for some of the conclusions apparently being drawn from this data. As TT comment:

37,978 children from 165 schools took part. 7.08% said they were transgender. This means 2,688 children claiming to be trans, equating to roughly 16 trans identifying children on average in every one of the schools who took part in the survey. This is just not credible.
The ONS census of 2021 showed that of 262,000 people over the age of 16, 0.05% of the population identified as transgender. And this statistic is now known to be unreliable due to confusion over the wording of the question on ‘gender identity.’
Curious researchers ought to have asked why 7.08% of schoolchildren in the Greater Manchester area believe they are trans.

They probably don't give this to their partners… … I very much doubt…

Not really very reassuring.

The ONS do check, and officially licence, anyone accessing their data for research purporses. Again I'm not a quants person so couldn't tell you what the process is but I know it is time-consuming. I suspect health data is even more rigorously protected. It is likely that, for this, access to the raw data is confined to accredited researchers at Manchester University. They probably don't give this to their partners in the BeeIndoctrinated network (or whatever they are called), they probably just involve them at the strategic guidance/feeding back results/gauging impact levels.

I do share people's concerns with this survey which seems to be poor in all sorts of ways and deeply concerning on the gender ideology side, but I very much doubt that "a bunch of randoms" have access to this data. That would be spectacularly poor research practice and Manchester University would be penalised heavily for it.

I'm sure you're right that their promoting gender identity at schoolchildren in the light of Cass displays their capture by transactivism and renders them unsuitable to be pushing their materials to schools.
But I'd have thought their attempts to create their own database of children's views to be linked in the future with their child and adult NHS records is giving what are literally a group of randoms, access to the most confidential materials about citizens. And done by seeking life long consent from children and / or their carers.

It could be seen as an unethical grift on a massive scale.

My understanding is that consent for linked data is now a standard part of ONS surveys. I don't know whether health comes under a different category or what the process is for consent from children (not a quants person). So the linked data issue is considerably wider than this survey and might be tough to challenge.

I think a better challenge comes from the GI indoctrination. Surely post Cass this is not in the public interest.

I'm less concerned at the linked data.

For me, consent is key. I'm sure there will be parents who would be happy to opt in on behalf of their child. That's great. They should be able to do this, as long as their child is happy with it too.

I would hope that schools could articulate why they think it's a good idea and that parents then have an opportunity to talk as a family about whether their children want to do this. I would also hope that any research organisation which accepts a child and parents' combined consent (at age 14) then writes to the child again when they are 18, reminding them of their decision and that they can opt out i.e. I think opt-out would be appropriate in that scenario.

It's the duplicity of it that I strongly object to. That and the content of the survey. Its first 3 questions set the scene for the rest. It's a recruitment scheme for gender identity belief underpinned and "legitimised" by self-IDing as a worthy cause. If it didn't incorporate gender identity as real and had followed a more ethical approach, I might well have been happy for my own children to participate if they were happy to do so.

Edited for clarity

I agree it's appalling that a state funded survey exists to propagate gender ideology among children. I'm less concerned at the linked data. This has been a dream of the ONS and every quants researcher for the last few decades. It's repeatedly attempted and often incredibly difficult and time consuming though there are some successes now. There will be safeguards in place - this is standard practice.

Without the GI bits I would think that this is a great idea. It can tell us so much about children's mental health.

I don't know what the consent process is with children but other national studies (for weight, height and hearing) are done in schools.

Interesting.

I've just been looking at the information on children's data.

I can't imagine for one minute that the vague description of possible future plans meets the idea that the best interests of the child must come first..

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/childrens-information/children-and-the-uk-gdpr/what-should-our-general-approach-to-processing-children-s-personal-data-be/

As Mrs O says, the main party whose interests are being met here is the university/BeeWell, who can make lots of money off whatever they do with their research, using their future access to the children's health records... for as long as they like. It's impossible for it to be in any participating child's own interests to have their adult life tracked in this way. It's theoretically possible for other future children to benefit from this mined data (although the quality of the questions suggests otherwise), if the research informs and improves future youth health provision. But the participants won't benefit. That's got to be a fail under GDPR too... surely.

Health data and that of children has higher protection under GDPR too.

Thanks. It seems a very thorough and professional policy - as it should be.

Shame that they're so caught up with their belief in gender identity that they fail to understand their promotion of it as fact to children, (when in fact it's a very niche adult belief) somewhat undermines their claims to effectively safeguard children.

Thank you for posting this. I keep a very watchful eye on who comes into my DC school and always research them for a whiff of indoctrination.

BeeWell have a Safeguarding Policy:
https://beewellprogramme.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/BeeWell-Safeguarding-policy.pdf

Page 12 is 'Research and Safeguarding'

Don't know if this is of any help?

Actually, this looks better than my "data breach" idea. Scrap that!

It looks like anyone can contact the ICO to report a breach - and that's what this is if there is no lawful basis for schools and/or local authorities handing thousands of children's names (and other data?) to the university.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/report-a-breach/personal-data-breach/

But for it to be accepted by the ICO as a breach, it presumably firstly needs to be established that their approach doesn't meet the public task criteria.

I really hope this piques the interest of some privacy lawyers out there who can pick their way through this.

Some more screenshots from the website page in case they remove it...

I could see this ending in a law suit at some point in the future…

I just did their complaint query thing.

It doesn't have to be your data to complain.

One should complain direct to the organisation in the first instance.

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/

You can do a webchat with them, and you can do it anonymously iirc.

The info on the parents' section of the website says that it is a "public interest task" and a "process necessary for research purposes", which it turns out is part of a clause specific to the UK in GDPR:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/lawful-basis/a-guide-to-lawful-basis/lawful-basis-for-processing/public-task/#:~:text=You%20may%20share%20personal%20information,basis%20you%20are%20subject%20to.

According to the ICO website, the following applies (my bold):

You can rely on this lawful basis if you need to process personal data:

• ‘in the exercise of official authority’. This covers public functions and powers that are set out in law; or
• to perform a specific task in the public interest that is set out in law

And:

The processing must be necessary. If you could reasonably perform your tasks or exercise your powers in a less intrusive way, this lawful basis does not apply.

If you can show you are exercising official authority, including use of discretionary powers, there is no additional public interest test. However, you must be able to demonstrate that the processing is ‘necessary’ for that purpose.
‘Necessary’ means that the processing must be a targeted and proportionate way of achieving your purpose. You do not have a lawful basis for processing if there is another reasonable and less intrusive way to achieve the same result.

Looping back to what Cautious said above, there surely must be another way to get data at scale for people of different ages which maps their mental health to their circumstances. I'm no research scientist but the justification for tracking children in the throes of teenage angst to answers they gave aged 13 and 14 (to questions with a bias of gender identity belief as fact) seems woolly at best. Surely they could survey the nation in a different, less intrusive way. For example, when looking at point in time data sets for people of different ages, they could normalise for postcode area and age when comparing them to predict future outcomes for young people when looking at survey responses.
I presume that's the "desired outcome" so that the dataset informs authorities what might contribute towards better outcomes.

I agree with PPs that this needs investigation and exposure. It looks like it needs two skillsets to challenge it:

1. privacy law under GDPR
2. knowledge of research protocols and how to achieve the desired outcome in the least obtrusive way

This.
How can a school legally share pupil data with a university in this way without consent? Surely this breaches GDPR?

What justification is there for Manchester University holding names of students NOT wanting their data gathered/held? You must also be given the opportunity to removed yourself from such research at any point, so whilst there may be a deadline for the SCHOOL to be told you don’t want to take part, you must be able to withdraw after that too.

Do any of the parents involved have the time to contact the ICO ? Or do they take "referrals" from anyone? Does anyone know?

It's the modern way; this toxic mix of propagandising and grift. It seems these days parents have to watch what's going on in schools like a hawk. It all sounds so dubious, as pointed out, from the GDPR aspect alone. A legal overview would be welcome too.

I wonder whether it would be worth making a complaint directly to the ICO about this.

As various PP have noted, the fact that it is opt out implies that the researchers have already been given children's personal data (at least their names and probably their ages) without consent. It sounds far fetched, but, for example, what if someone working on this project is not supposed to have contact with or know the location of a particular child, and that child's details have been included in the data already sent to the university? That individual might now be able to find out where that child goes to school.

I also think that due to the extremely sensitive nature of the data and the research team's intention to use it for extremely far reaching purposes, an opt out can never be sufficient to indicate informed consent. Busy parents don't always have time to read the small print of every email they get from their child's school. I would guess that at least half the parents will not have understood the implications of this or even that it is happening well enough to exercise their right to opt out. And what about parents who don't have much education or don't speak fluent English? Are they really supposed to be combing through the small print to understand what data is going to be collected about their child if they don't opt out, and what it might be used for in the future?

This is highly unethical. I would be raising merry hell with the school and reporting it to the ICO. I get that 18th November is tomorrow but if you can get hold of someone high up at the school first thing in the morning and raise all these safeguarding and data privacy concerns they might just opt all the children out en masse.