Can a school go through a kids phone?

Niv

TWIGLET1234 said:

pinkshoes said:

I assume the school has a no phones policy? Many schools have this policy due to bullying in the form of messaging. Whether this is nasty stuff said about someone, or even just excluding or removing someone from a group to make them feel isolated...

I'm a teacher who works at a school with a phone ban. If pupils are caught with phone out, then it is confiscated and a parent then has to arrange to come and collect it. 

A child has a right not to be bullied at school, so if the school suspected your daughters phone contained material to show bullying was taking place, then they had to right to ask to see it which your daughter allowed. If your daughter refused, there is always the option of getting the police involved depending on the severity of the bullying.

I do, however, find it wrong that the headteacher sent a message from your daughter's phone. I would not be happy about this.

PS - discord is for kids age 13+ and you have to agree you are 13+ to sign up. Your daughter is 11...  Also, if you read the T&Cs, it says that any "content" uploaded on the messages belongs to discord, and they can do what they like with it, so might be worth stating how everything she writes online is a permanent record that can be pulled up at any time:

By uploading, distributing, transmitting or otherwise using Your Content with the Service, you grant to us a perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable, royalty-free, sublicensable, and worldwide license to use, host, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display Your Content in connection with operating and providing the Service

They are allowed their phones but have to hand it to the teacher at registration and get it back at the end of the day. I think this is a good policy for those who walk home etc, and I have peace of mind and can call her if I’m stuck in traffic. 

Thanks for the pointer about discord. We’ve actually deleted her account and she’s banned from using that or WhatsApp now. There was some pretty nasty content from some of the boys uncovered throughout this investigation which I’m grateful to now be aware of. Whilst I have always trusted my daughter, it’s a learning curve that I should monitor her communications more as I have no control over content that her “friends” are sharing 

Appreciate that you have banned the use of Discord and WhatsApp but there are many other messaging services out there that do similar things such as Band so knowing how kids love a technicality - have you just banned those two apps or have you made it a more blanket ban on messaging apps? 

In any case, I would make it your business to check her phone more regularly to see what new apps have been installed. 

prowla

IMHO, the Head has done the morally right thing in the context of the bullying and misuse of phone whilst at school.

However, searching someone's property without consent and a parent present is not right; I don't know if they've broken the law there, though.

Going beyond that and using the child's phone to send messages to other children who were not in school at the time, even with the best intentions, is again not right.

So, the Head has stepped across at least two lines there.

But now it's done, consider the implications of taking things further; it will almost certainly have the consequence of bringing the bullying out into the open, which could lead to resultant outcomes.

From a different perspective, though, the Head could've gone down a legal route to investigate it and that could've been much more damaging to all involved.

Overall, if it stops some bullying, then the outcome is a good one.

Pollycat

prowla said:

IMHO, the Head has done the morally right thing in the context of the bullying and misuse of phone whilst at school.

However, searching someone's property without consent and a parent present is not right; I don't know if they've broken the law there, though.

Going beyond that and using the child's phone to send messages to other children who were not in school at the time, even with the best intentions, is again not right.

So, the Head has stepped across at least two lines there.

But now it's done, consider the implications of taking things further; it will almost certainly have the consequence of bringing the bullying out into the open, which could lead to resultant outcomes.

From a different perspective, though, the Head could've gone down a legal route to investigate it and that could've been much more damaging to all involved.

Overall, if it stops some bullying, then the outcome is a good one.

I think any bullying should be brought out into the open and anyone involved should suffer the resultant outcome.

T.T.D

Taking aside bullying here, OP said they addressed it, now let adults address the phone issue. 

My concern is that of head and his actions with the daughters phone.

Why did he feel the need to take the phone out of the schools jurisdiction in the first place? and out of schools control, to take sole control and take sole custody of it and not lock away until a later date so as could be examined with parents in a school setting is a questionable act that NEEDS addressing. 

What private laptop or PC did he hook it upto? 

What has he downloaded from it?

Why did he download them?

For what purpose?

Granted powers are given to the school, on school premises, but in sole possession at a teachers home is another matter?
 These Stat Guidance and powers do not follow him home and there in lies a problem for this headmaster and the school and it’s governors and the LEA if a state school. 

Why did he use it under her name on discord?

For what purpose?

What could he have achieved and why?

What ramifications could have resulted in home using discord under her name for this pupil, it would have certainly have cause some confusion to many in that discord may have resulted in back lash and started up some bullying? 

The simple and logical answer to me is there was no need, all this could have dealt with on school premises with parents present. It should have been stored in safe place during our of hours operations. 

This is a separate issue to the bullying, and needs to be addressed to prevent this head from doing it again. 

onomatopoeia99

T.T.D said:

(nothing compels you to give your passcodes or passwords!)

Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) does exactly that, on pain of two years imprisonment (five in some cases) under section 53 if you fail to comply.  The bar that has to be leapt to serve such a notice is pretty low, but even so, schoolteachers aren't in the list of persons that have the appropriate permission to serve an s49 notice, and good luck on anyone trying to bring the full weight of the criminal justice system down on an 11 year old for not unlocking their phone, the public interest test would almost certainly be failed and they'd rightly get their !!!!!! kicked from here to John O'Groats.

RIPA is an iniquitous piece of legislation and the reason I will, to this day, not vote for a Labour politician.

The Education act 1996 s.550ZA-C grants search powers to head teachers and the power to delete data from electronic devices  (I didn't realise this and it's interesting to me that school pupils get markedly less legal protection against criminal damage than once they are out of the school premises), but there is no power in s550 as I read it that requires the pupil to surrender a passcode enabling an electronic device to be unlocked.  

pollypenny

Aren't teachers in loco parentis still, so could legitimately access the phone?

T.T.D

pollypenny said:

Aren't teachers in loco parentis still, so could legitimately access the phone?

Interesting angle!

I would say legitimate access would be if the teacher knew the passcode or pin or the pupil was willing to share them, and is on school site, beyond that I think needs clear instructions from Secretary of State or the Education Secretary.  

What we have here is a legitimate search and seizure, with elements going beyond the legal powers I.E taking Home the phone which guidance says is a big no no unless there is a emergency situation that would warrant it, in this case seems to be absent of this element.  

 keeping it 24 hours also appears to be against the guidance as it says it should be returned at schools end of day given the age of the pupil.

The head is no longer covered under “any liability” clause, and it’s use to communicate is clear breach of article 8 of the  human rights act, this use isn’t permitted (unless it was a life and limb situation to call 999).  

thorsoak

I would just like to pull out the old chestnut - with rights come responsibilities - and I'm talking about the rights of the school, the responsbilities of the school, the rights of the parents whose daughter's phone was the point of this discussion, the responsibilities of the daughter - and the rights of the pupil who was bullied.

99bottles

This would fall under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Accessing and using the discord on the phone for personal use could be seen as a Section 1 offences. If there is a policy about data access, which most employers have then accessing data outside of these guidelines this would also be a section 1 breach.

You could easily make a case that this would also breach the Data Protection Act 2018

Morally was the school correct, maybe. Legally they could be on more dodgy ground.