New KCSIE recommendation: Social Media checks on candidates

[Primus]

Simply, refuse to do it - and look at whistle-blowing.

 

Clearly there are a lot of issues surrounding this and something that may on the surface appear straightforward can often become far from when implementing it.

 

However I'm not sure advising someone to act as a whistleblower when the school are attempting to follow statutory guidance would be the best advice - I'd want some union or legal advice before I undertook anything like that as whistleblowing only grants you protection if certain criteria are met and in any case sadly usually ends up with the whistleblowing moving on.

 

You can protect yourself by challenging the instructions you are being given in a constructive way, asking for guidance from the school or MAT's solicitors etc.

 

You also need to remember that most actions undertaken by an employee are covered by vicarious liability - meaning that your employer would be liable rather than you as an individual.

 

If you believed what you were being asked to do was then illegal you would certainly want some independent advice yourself and your union would be a good first port of call.

[Ditto]

Clearly there are a lot of issues surrounding this and something that may on the surface appear straightforward can often become far from when implementing it.

 

However I'm not sure advising someone to act as a whistleblower when the school are attempting to follow statutory guidance would be the best advice - I'd want some union or legal advice before I undertook anything like that as whistleblowing only grants you protection if certain criteria are met and in any case sadly usually ends up with the whistleblowing moving on.

 

You can protect yourself by challenging the instructions you are being given in a constructive way, asking for guidance from the school or MAT's solicitors etc.

 

You also need to remember that most actions undertaken by an employee are covered by vicarious liability - meaning that your employer would be liable rather than you as an individual.

 

If you believed what you were being asked to do was then illegal you would certainly want some independent advice yourself and your union would be a good first port of call.

I get where you are coming from, but I guess it depends on the interpretation. To me it looked like someone was being asked to knowingly breach terms and conditions and that whilst not necessarily illegal, for me it is unacceptable. As such being *aware* of whistle-blowing options in my view is warranted. I do agree better to pursue other avenues first including consulting with a union if you are with one. What's really frustrating with this, apart from the fact it is a badly thought through update to KCSIE, is that is is being dumped in the direction of IT - it is not an IT function.

[jthompson]

Given that the wording of the DfE guidance doesn't actually state "social media" for this stuff, doesn't that make it easier to push back against requests to set up dummy Facebook accounts and the like?

 

I expect people have thought "search social media" assuming that that will proffer more insight than a list of people with a particular name.

 

The intention of the guidance is surely just to do a simple check of the public domain (i.e. web search) for any news articles and the like in case there's something that's not been caught by DBS?

[sigma]

I suppose we'll be getting Cellbrite devices next and have to examine everything in their phones? (Not entirely serious).

 

If I was asked to hand over social media accounts details, would anyone believe that I didn't have, nor never had any accounts with or on any Facebook owned properties ever, or would that just count against me?

[elsiegee40]

At one school I was at, the Head’s favourite interview question was “What would we find if we Googled you?”

 

It brought out a few ‘interesting’ answers… including one person who owned up to something that was a safeguarding concern.

[jmak]

It's the kind of thing that I could imagine I might have ended up being involved in when I was working in a school - it's often a small team and people often do things that wouldn't normally fall in their job description, I'm fairly efficient at searching the internet(!) and coincidentally I'd had safer recruitment training as a governor.

 

However, one step removed (no longer working in a school), it is absolutely clear that this is not an IT support responsibility. It's entirely inappropriate - just because the job requires use of a computer doesn't make it an IT support responsibility.

 

And you have every right to refuse to do anything that requires you to break terms and conditions.

[Ditto]

My name is shared with an ex-MP - it could be the end of my employment prospects in schools . Although I haven't made the HoL's yet, so maybe there is a little hope left!

[Primus]

I get where you are coming from, but I guess it depends on the interpretation. To me it looked like someone was being asked to knowingly breach terms and conditions and that whilst not necessarily illegal, for me it is unacceptable. As such being *aware* of whistle-blowing options in my view is warranted. I do agree better to pursue other avenues first including consulting with a union if you are with one. What's really frustrating with this, apart from the fact it is a badly thought through update to KCSIE, is that is is being dumped in the direction of IT - it is not an IT function.

 

My concern is someone reads such a categorical statement, follows it and then ends up in real trouble when the real situation is far more nuanced.

 

There is a more constructive approach that you can take which still protects you but doesn't put you in the firing line.

 

I think we can all see the reasons why this shouldn't be a task asked of the IT technical team, but the issue is outside of our circle a lot of people would see the exact opposite - we're all "experts" in searching online etc etc.

 

Often guidance and legislation is deliberately vague.

[Scifigirl]

Given that the wording of the DfE guidance doesn't actually state "social media" for this stuff, doesn't that make it easier to push back against requests to set up dummy Facebook accounts and the like?

 

The guidance from the DfE may be deliberately vague, The guidance from local HR services like SPS is very specific. Our HR has received a form they have to fill in for each shortlisted candidate, which includes using a variety of search engines, and social media.

 

I have created as directed but with a CYA statement, that this will likely get deleted as social media are very hot on dummy accounts as they are against their T's and C's, and that is not my problem.

 

Thanks to all for the discussion

 

Edit - also sorry probably wasn't clear, i haven't been asked to do the searches, only set up the accounts and hand them off to HR.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Scifigirl

[esafety_officer]

Sorry for the delayed response to this - I've not been on edugeek for a while I'm afraid!

 

We produced an overview of the online safety points in KCSIE 2022 - most recently updated in September 2022: https://www.theeducationpeople.org/blog/keeping-children-safe-in-education-2022-online-safety-summary-for-dsls-and-leaders/

 

I would advise schools should be seeking advice via their own local authority education safeguarding services as their advice or views may be different to ours, but our advice to our schools has been that where they do opt to carry online searches on shortlisted candidates, this should be done appropriately and safely, for example only accessing content that is available publicly. Searches and the schools approaches to them should be transparent (for example, candidates should be advised that online searches may be carried out during the application process) and should always take place in line with appropriate privacy and data protection legislation.

 

We recommend that schools/colleges ensure they have a process in place to follow if they were to identify something that was significantly concerning, for example something that could indicate a candidate was unsuitable to work with children. We also recommended that any decisions are addressed in any safer recruitment policies the school has in place and that schools/college should seek specialist advice from legal/HR/personnel providers.

 

As others have mentioned, KCSIE says 'as part of the shortlisting process schools and colleges should consider carrying out an online search as part of their due diligence on the shortlisted candidates' - I would suggest this isn't an IT issue and should fall within HR/recruitment personnel etc. roles and responsibilities.

[fiza]

My other half has been looking at teaching jobs and was asked by one school to complete a consent form for a Social Media check run by https://socialmediacheck.com/. She had already accepted another job by this time so did not consent to the checks. As part of the process they ask for social media passwords which they say remain secure and no one sees them. Has any school on here started using this company, would be interesting to learn how it all works.

[andy_b]

I believe we use https://www.carecheck.co.uk/social-media-checks/ .

 

There is no way I'd be handing passwords over. That seems like a massive overreach.

[Theblacksheep]

I believe we use https://www.carecheck.co.uk/social-media-checks/ .

 

There is no way I'd be handing passwords over. That seems like a massive overreach.

 

Disable 2fa for how long too.

 

Ridiculous overreach.

[LeMarchand]

There is no way I'd be handing passwords over. That seems like a massive overreach.

 

Plus loads of people reuse passwords. I'm not sure I'd even let them know what social media accounts I have. Mind you, I'm not on any of the usual suspects.

[Ditto]

As part of the process they ask for social media passwords which they say remain secure and no one sees them. Has any school on here started using this company, would be interesting to learn how it all works.

 

Whoa! That's so off the scale I'd want to 'out' the school with a twitter viral storm. Just NO! NO! NO!

[David44]

Disable 2fa for how long too.

 

Ridiculous overreach.

 

The other company posted here (https://socialmediacheck.com/) state they don't ask for the password, they use OAuth2 to access your account. So, you'd go to the company website and authorise them to access your Facebook account etc using a token. Much like when you sign in to a third party app or site using your Facebook, Google or Twitter account, you get a consent screen that tells you what information the OAuth2 provider will share with the third party. This is not a case of someone at the company going to facebook.com signing in manually and making a judgement based on what the algorithm decides to show that day. I imagine all these companies work in a similar way, accessing the data using an API authenticated using OAuth2. Easy money.

 

Ridiculous overreach though, yes.

[jthompson]

That's surely got to be a misinterpretation by somebody at some point along the way?!

 

I'd be inclined to regard any candidate that did surrender their private social media passwords as being in need of some training before being trusted with a school user account.

Edited April 27, 2023 by jthompson

[RLR]

Schools are already struggling to recruit, this will just push more people away.

[Ditto]

Just as a reminder this is from KCSIE:

 

 

i) only for short-listed candidate.

ii) help identify incidents and issues...and are available publicly only

iii) school or college might want to explore with the applicant

 

It does not say dig deeply in to a candidate's private life.

 

The more I think about this, the more it riles me and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a right to privacy issue - I'm thinking Human Rights Act 1998 which perversely is covered in KCSIE in paragraphs 83, 84 and 85. I'm of to get a cuppa now to calm down!

[Primus]

Yes it very much sounds like organisations that want access to your social media account beyond what can be seen publicly are massively over-reaching.

[GrumbleDook]

Just as a reminder this is from KCSIE:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]68746[/ATTACH]

 

i) only for short-listed candidate.

ii) help identify incidents and issues...and are available publicly only

iii) school or college might want to explore with the applicant

 

It does not say dig deeply in to a candidate's private life.

 

The more I think about this, the more it riles me and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a right to privacy issue - I'm thinking Human Rights Act 1998 which perversely is covered in KCSIE in paragraphs 83, 84 and 85. I'm of to get a cuppa now to calm down!

 

Absolutely spot on. Probably the best summary out there.

 

KCSiE does *not* say that you need to be able to take over any SM of a candidate. Heck, from a Data Protection/Privacy point of view, this would be a nightmare to manage for any organisation.

If I was to see this on any job application, or even using any service where I give authorisation to access my SM, then I would be asking what else are the doing wrong. An FoI request to see the risk assessment/DPIA on this would be sent in and actively challenged.

[Andrew_C]

I'm thinking Human Rights Act 1998

Not for long...

[Ditto]

There are updates in the recently released KCSIE 2023 around this topic. Have a read and see what you think.

[andy_b]

221 now has this added:

 

Schools and colleges should inform shortlisted candidates that

online searches may be done as part of due diligence checks.

 

Otherwise is the same.