Officers criticised for not considering whether to carry out data protection impact assessment before monitoring social media posts of SEN campaigners

A scrutiny board at a city council has expressed alarm that officers failed to consider whether they needed to carry out a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) before monitoring social media posts by campaigners for children with special educational news and disabilities.

A report by Bristol's legal service was commissioned after two local SEND campaigners in the Bristol Parent Carer Forum complained that council officers were collating their social media posts.

It found there had been no surveillance, as defined in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, nor any potential breach of the Article 8 of the Human Rights Act. Legal services also concluded there was no evidence that systematic monitoring took place and the collation of social media content was done for a specific purpose with no legal requirement to undertake a DPIA.

It said the council’s information governance and security team believed a DPIA would not have been required.

The report did though recommend that the council’s social media protocol should be updated guidance on viewing and sharing third party social media. 

However, Bristol’s Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB), at which concerns about the monitoring were raised in July, said in a statement to the cabinet that it had “strong concerns about the statement in the report that there was ‘no formal written decision to authorise the gathering of these social media posts’".

It added: "Although the officers’ report concludes that there was no legal requirement to undertake a DPIA, this has
been concluded in retrospect and only after concerns had been raised in the public domain."

The report said there appeared to be no evidence that the officers involved considered whether a DPIA was necessary beforehand, nor whether searching through personal social media of parent-carers of children with special education needs “was morally or ethically appropriate”.

The statement said that regardless of the lawfulness of the actions undertaken, “the council’s reputation has suffered as a result of ensuing national media coverage, and the already damaged levels of trust between many parent carers and the council has been further diminished”.

A motion to the next full council meeting from the Conservative opposition, said “controversial retrievals, involving the cross-referencing of tweets, photos and Facebook entries made by two prominent SEND campaigners and leading members of the Bristol Parent Carer Forum was profoundly ill-conceived” and questioned whether the officers’ actions had been “contrary to the spirit of family law”.

It called for an independent investigation by an outside body.

Mark Smulian