Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

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Bristol city council and Avon and Somerset police, who worked together on the system, insist it is in place to protect children, not criminalise them, and deny it is secret, pointing out that information about its existence is publicly available.

Liz Fekete, the director of the Institute of Race Relations, strongly criticised elements of the app, saying the approach “stigmatises whole families and leaves even primary school children vulnerable to police surveillance and intelligence gathering”.

Systems to collate information about children are used in other parts of England but Bristol city council describes Think Family as “innovative” and a number of local authorities are watching how the app works.

A spokesperson for Bristol city council said the Think Family database was introduced to counter the trend of agencies working in silos at a time of a “generational squeeze” on public finances.

A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset police said the database gave professionals working with children joined-up information to identify and safeguard those at risk of criminal and sexual exploitation.

The force said “robust privacy and sharing agreements” had been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office and development of the system done in collaboration with the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.

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