‘Named Persons’ were reported in July as being told to routinely ignore the wishes of parents in an online tutorial sponsored by Scotland’s 32 councils.
The YouTube tutorial, which was taken down after being exposed in the Scottish press, told teachers acting as Named Persons that consent is needed before pupils’ personal information can be shared. But it then instructed these ‘state guardians’ to override consent ‘by default’, explaining ‘otherwise you’ll have to show you obtained parent and child consent’.
The SEEMiS Group, which is owned and managed by Scotland’s councils, produced the guidance. It runs the database into which schools enter pupils’ personal information in order to ‘track and monitor’ them.
Despite court decision...
In 2016, the UK Supreme Court ruled against the Scottish Government, declaring the data sharing provisions of the Named Person scheme to be illegal. The court’s decision meant the statutory, compulsory scheme required a complete revision. However, local authorities are still running non-statutory versions of the scheme.
