Scottish 'sex census' for children will *not* be anonymous

[ArabellaScott]

BBC report yesterday:

'The government insists the census is confidential and voluntary.'

www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-59518427

However the Herald has broken the story that it's neither anonymous nor voluntary:

'the Herald on Sunday has seen privacy documents over the scheme that show that local authorities can act on behalf of children if any answers raise concerns.

This has raised fears that that the controversial survey is a 'named person scheme' through the back door. '

' While the UK's General Data Protection Regulation gives individuals the right to object to the processing of personal data, the information states that where the processing of personal data is for scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes, "these rights to object is more restricted".

...

And it states that parents cannot object to the processing of health and wellbeing data.

"As the data we process is lawfully gathered and necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest, you do not have a right to object to the processing of your personal data," the document states.

It can also not be deleted. '

www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/19762206.new-snoopers-charter-scots-ministers-sex-census-kids-not-confidential/

Some councils are rejecting this survey, I am heartened to see, and several others are reviewing: www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/19762197.scottish-governments-sex-census-kids-rejected-eight-councils/

@PicsInRed yes full school record including photo and all medical information basically everything that the school holds on each child

Wouldn't the survey need an identification number, in order to be de-anonymised?

@ArabellaScott

How will the survey be administered - if in a classroom, surely it's not hard to imagine children catching sight of others' answers and then talking about them to other kids.

Yep, in a classroom.

The level of weapons grade stupidity that must have been involved to come up with this is awesome.

Absolute bloody shitshow of a government- I have never been more grateful that my kids aren't in school.

@Soontobe60

I think the level to which people just don't think is astonishing. I remember a Y9 SATs exam once where the writing question was 'write about the worst thing that has ever happened to you'. Presumably the person setting it thought kids would write about their hamster dying or something?

A kid in my class wrote about the day he was, forcibly, removed from his (abusive drug-addicted) mother. I'm sure he used semi-colons effectively

[quote Hoardasurass]@PicsInRed yes full school record including photo and all medical information basically everything that the school holds on each child[/quote]
Jesus christ.

That's seems very deliberate.
Very calculated.

That's seems very deliberate.

When they say 'lessons will be learnt' they just mean 'we'll find better ways of doing it so that we aren't found out'.

I am under no illusion that any of this is an admin error or something that went too far. This is 100% planned and strategised.

I've missed this - what is the purpose of this "census" please?
Why (and who) in the Scottish government wants to know which children have had anal sex ?

I’m so, so embarrassed and fucking LIVID to be Scottish right now.

What is going on? I don’t even know where to start I’m so bloody angry.

The stated purpose, MrsOverton, is ' ...to plan for children’s services in their local area and so have a "legal basis" to ask young people about their lives and wellbeing to help them with this.'

The infuriating thing about this is that there could be good reasons to gather confidential data on children's experiences with sex / drugs etc. It is naive to ignore the fact that some kids that have these experiences, and need support. but this is so much the wrong way to do this.

Quite agree, parietal.

It's not like this is happening in a vacuum, is it? Existing services have managed to plan for need/demand etc without the use of a clumsily worded, poorly thought through classroom survey about anal sex. So what's changed?

Thank you Arabella. So a reasonable aim but executed with an embarrassing lack of awareness of child abuse, safeguarding and confidentiality?

Sounds about right. I don't have first hand knowledge of this sector, but I am going to guess that healthcare and support services for young people have managed to handle this need for data better in the past. At least, I'm not aware of children/young people being asked these questions before, in a classroom setting.

There was an article in The Times (Scotland) about it.
Hopefully share token works.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c761f722-5489-11ec-8d72-b8ab431649b1?shareToken=a975f5f447bf6c4e701053b2f69f83ddd_

Why is in not surprising that Dundee will be administering the census uncensored?

Is Gregor Murray still on the council there?

Excellent thread from Safe Schools Alliance.

Here are some of the questions.

twitter.com/safeschools_uk/status/1464299280626327560?s=21

OMG even if this was completely confidential, those questions are really really inappropriate to ask underage children.

Bloody hell

Holy shit, those questions 🤯

Who the fuck thought these were appropriate? Who needs their hard drive looking at.
Jesus christ that's horrendous.

Ok thinking about it, my mothers husband who abused me from a very young age (and used various excuses) if he had seen this at the age of me being around 14/15 when he was using the I'm doing this to prepare you for your boyfriend excuse, he would have used it. He would have convinced me what he was doing was right. I would have carried on not saying anything. I would have suffered years and years more abuse.
I want to cry now for all the children that will suffer more because of this stupid fucking survey.

I'm sorry to hear that Terfydactyl.

There seems to have been so little thought gone into this.

All this and yet there is a teacher on Scotsnet arguing that it's all perfectly fine as at the end of the day they can opt not to answer and thinks the rest of the posters are pearl clutchers. It's madness.

Terfydactyl

@ElephantOfRisk

All this and yet there is a teacher on Scotsnet arguing that it's all perfectly fine as at the end of the day they can opt not to answer and thinks the rest of the posters are pearl clutchers. It's madness.

That poster really is something isn't she?

Think how stressful that would be for those who hadn’t done anything sexual if their friends all had. I’m sure lots of people would feel pressured to lie on it so they weren’t at risk of others laughing at them for not having done anything 🤦🏼‍♀️ I remember in my un-cool, un-pretty teen years (not saying I’m cool or pretty now but I’m cooler and prettier I think 🙈) when my guidance teacher asked us to raise our hands if we had a boyfriend or girlfriend, then again if we’d ever had one. I hadn’t and I couldn’t have put my hand up then tried to make something up so I just had to sit there really embarrassed with my hand down 😔 Those sorts of moments are huge deal when you’re that age.

It’s fine, I’m with the hottest guy from school now and all the cool pretty people with all the boyfriends have turned out fat and ugly 😂😂 just kidding, kind of 🤔