AIBU to ask if school can go through my son's phone?

[ejk10]

This hasn't happened to my son yet -but he thinks it might, and happened to some of his friends today.

Apparently a child has made a statement which the school is investigating (none of the boys have been told what the complaint is) and a teacher demanded to look through this boy's phone and deleted some information. My son has not been questioned but is friends with those who have been and is wondering if the school would ask to look at his phone.

I'm not sure of the legalities of this. Part of me thinks if he has nothing wrong why worry if they look - another part of me thinks it is a huge invasion of privacy. My son assures me he has done nothing wrong - regardless of whether he has or not I'm questioning if they have the right to look through private data.

Can anyone shed any light?

“Steetwise, so if your child tells me that they are the victim of cyberbullying, or upskirting, or attempted radicalisation, or recruitment to county Lines gangs, or reports that they have had photographs or videos of school friends shared with them that shouldn't be, or they have evidence on their phone of physical injuries from abuse that a friend has shared with them and that they are therefore concerned about their friend, then you are absolutely happy for me - or my head, or the designated safeguarding lead - to hear that verbally, but they must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to see the evidence on the phone because that is an invasion of privacy?”

You must involve parents and the police immediately in the examples you give. Crimes have been alleged.

They can’t, police can though

He’s obviously done something or been chatting up girls he’s embarrassed about

“This is the proverbial playing chess with a pigeon.”

This failure to understand complexity only highlights why these matter must involve parents and the appropriate professionals.

I absolutely agree, by the way, that there should be policies and procedures around which members of staff look at material on phones, under what circumstances, in what privacy and with who else present - not every member of staff, in any corridor, by themselves - in the same way as there are policies and procedures around the handling of all sensitive and confidential information in school.

I disagree that no school staff should ever look at any information on any phone except in the presence of a parent or a police officer, which is your contention.

“They can’t, police can though”

Not if the phone is locked.

“I disagree that no school staff should ever look at any information on any phone except in the presence of a parent or a police officer, which is your contention.”

A school is taking a significant risk of it does so, particularly in a case where they have forced, through coercion or intimidation, for the phone to be unlocked.

If the photos on the phone are actually evidence of abuse committed against the child by the parent, why should the parent be present (abuse / neglect etc go through social services in the first instance, not police)? Would you be happy to replace 'parent' with 'social worker', and if social worker, why not specially trained teacher - ie designated safeguarding lead?

“This is the proverbial playing chess with a pigeon.”

This failure to understand complexity only highlights why these matter must involve parents and the appropriate professionals

Pigeon chess comes to mind here again.

And the key part of pigeon chess is that in the eye of the pigeon they are always winning and have more enlightened view. Failure to agree with them just proves you aren't as enlightened as them.

I'm still a bit tickled by the idea that the police should be informed and brought in to deal with non criminal matters that schools already have the authority to deal with.

I have searched for a single piece of case law where a parent has taken a school to court because of a mobile phone search.

Interesting. I wonder why?

Maisy, I agree that police have MUCH better things to do that deal with matters of in-school behaviour..... whereas school teachers deal with both minor and reasonably serious non-criminal misdemeanors (and with safeguarding) all day every day....

You know, we're even specially trained to do so (shock, horror, gasp)

“Would you be happy to replace 'parent' with 'social worker', and if social worker,“

Of course.

We even have, wait for it, special training and policies on peer-on-peer abuse, which includes, oh, I don't know, a whole lot of stuff about phones and social media and images and sharing...

I was going to come back and mention Statutory guidance and the law, but I see someone already has mentioned it.

Hence my opinion, the schools cannot enforce this.

So a designated safeguarding lead (teacher) can perfectly legitimately check material on a phone as part of referring a case to social workers?

Or are you saying that the poor social worker has to come out to every school where there MIGHT be an issue so that they can sit in the DSO's office while the social worker is (uniquely) allowed to look at the material on the phone, decide whether or not it meets the criteria for immediate action and drive away again?? Really?

“I have searched for a single piece of case law where a parent has taken a school to court because of a mobile phone search.”

You mean you have googled. You haven’t searched court rolls all over the UK or read through judgements on connected cases where rulings may impact case law. You understand surely that legal research is more than googling?

But let’s even say your assertion was correct and there is no case law to speak of (which is unlikely). It would mean that your proposition of how the law and statutory guidance works in practice is also untested. Doesn’t it?

I also think a common sense approach is very much required here, if it’s of a serious probable cause then absolutely I think the schools need to try and deal with it, if they think the law has been broken, then I’d personally let the police deal with it.

Teachers just don’t have the time to deal with this.

“So a designated safeguarding lead (teacher) can perfectly legitimately check material on a phone as part of referring a case to social workers?”

No. Not if the unlocking of the phone is coerced. Where there is reasonable suspicion of the events you describe, teachers should involve social services and work with them and police to safeguard the child. It is not the job of the teacher to “crack the case”. By involving the correct agencies they are performing the safeguarding aspect of the role and making detection of crime and safeguarding of the child more and not less likely.

Streetwise,

Let's work this in reverse. How many times do you think that a school, anywhere in England, has acted on the statutory guidance and looked at a child's phone?

Tens of times? Hundreds of times? Thousands of times? Tens of thousands of times?

Is there any case law in which a case has come to court in which a parent or child has brought a case from ANY of these?

“Or are you saying that the poor social worker has to come out to every school where there MIGHT be an issue so that they can sit in the DSO's office while the social worker is (uniquely) allowed to look at the material on the phone, decide whether or not it meets the criteria for immediate action and drive away again?? ”

Absolutely. Social services may have knowledge that the school doesn’t have regarding the family circumstance and it is they who should act as point person, co-ordinating with all relevant agencies to ensure that correct steps are taken.

Lol!!!

You understand surely that legal research is more than googling?

Yes. Tbh I’m a bit busy preparing a safeguarding training session for later in the week to do a thorough job - would you be a dear and crack on with that though?

“Let's work this in reverse. How many times do you think that a school, anywhere in England, has acted on the statutory guidance and looked at a child's phone?

Tens of times? Hundreds of times? Thousands of times? Tens of thousands of times?

Is there any case law in which a case has come to court in which a parent or child has brought a case from ANY of these?”

No, let’s not work this in reverse. You are making an assertion and I cannot answer your question. Nor can you.

Hi social care, have you got a minute? Could you put your female genital mutilation case cases and your attempted abduction and serious child abuse and rape cases to the side for a minute and pop over so our trained safeguarding lead can look at a 13 year old’s phone with you? What do you mean that’s not your remit and you haven’t got time?

Absolutely. Social services may have knowledge that the school doesn’t have regarding the family circumstance and it is they who should act as point person, co-ordinating with all relevant agencies to ensure that correct steps are taken

Bahahahaaaa

Streetwise,

Do you understand the role of the designated safeguarding lead, and of all teachers in safeguarding?

I am not saying that every teacher tries to 'crack the casde'. every teacher has a legal duty to report every safeguarding concern to their dedignated safeguarding lead in their school. That designated safeguarding lead will, if necessary, refer the case onwards, or will seek guidance about what to do.

But before the case is referred onwards, that DSL - a teacher, usually a senior one - collects together the evidence that there is, for the referral to be made, rather than either reporting on every tiny scrap or hint of an issue, or 'summoning SS in to make an investigation of what may or may not turn out to be a case'. That evidence may be photographic, may be oral testimony, may be observations of behaviour, may be observations of marks on a child, may be e-mails, may be texts, may be shared photographs on phones.

SS job - IME - is to pick up that preliminary 'basket' of evidence and perform further investigations. It's not to sit there opening phones because the DSL 'isn't allowed to unless SS, police or a parent is present'.