Oh wise women of Mumsnet, please help me with a question about privacy law

[SpeedofaSloth]

DS has homework, which means I have to suffer, too.

If a child shares another child's phone number on social media, is a law broken?

It's not the DPA, is it?

Not a lawyer but I'd say no. I think you were thinking about GDPR which is about divulging personal data, but I don't think that applies to individuals.

However if the intent was to cause harm by posting the number then that could be illegal.

But again, IANAL!

I think your bit about intent to cause harm would be closer to the question. Would that be the Protection from Harrassment Act?

Malicious Communications maybe?

I can't help but think that my Y7 might have fallen asleep in a lesson, otherwise he might have a clue.

At the max, you could say Misuse of Telecommunications Act (takes 2 counts of ‘harassment’) if the number was posted with malicious intent ie by someone who knows/hopes it will be picked up and used to harass the person whose number it is-pretty impossible to prove intent. It’s not an actual crime to post someone’s number publically on social media, unless you count stupidity as a crime!

Thank you.

Turned out to be the Malicious Communications Act in the end, after DS practically turned his brain inside out to recall anything at all they might have talked about in school.

Reading the act, I don't see how it criminalises publishing another person's phone number per se.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/27/section/1

Now if you post something like "Joe is a fucking thief tell him what you think of him 0121 ### ###", then the Malicious Communications Act could apply.

The problem went something like, child a shares child b's number, child c sends nasty messages to child b. We DS decided that child c could possibly have broken the act, but probably not child a even though it was a not-great thing to do.

I'm not sure if it falls under dpa in sure that legislation relates to the info companies have in you but the scenario you describe is called doxing (releasing personal info with malicious intent) not sure if it's illegal in the UK but maybe look into the inadequate laws on social media use think its called the malicious communications act

I'm sure child c would also be in trouble as they sent a harassing text?