Was the Send social media surveillance carried out by Bristol City Council systematic?

The Oxford dictionary describes the word ‘systematic’ as something that is done according to a ‘well-defined plan or method, ensuring a thorough and efficient approach.’

It’s not often one can describe Bristol City Council as ‘thorough and efficient’ but surprisingly, when it comes to spying on its residents it does seem to excel.

Impact Social

In February 2020, Bristol journalist Joanna Booth, revealed that Bristol City Council had spent £90,000 on a contract with social media company – Impact Social – to analyse what was being said about now former mayor Marvin Rees as well as the council on Twitter.

Reports by Impact Social sent to the council identified individual Twitter users along with the percentage of Tweets made on the subject.

It also identified other hot topics of concern discussed on Twitter. Unfortunately the reports appear to have been removed from Bristol City Council’s website.

‘Negative Reputation’

Worrying about what people said on social media about Marvin Rees and Bristol City Council became a part of Cabinet decision making. A paper for Cabinet in August 2022, mistakenly contained PR advice around such issues. The entire paper was pulled and re-submitted to the following Cabinet meeting, this time without the below.

The concerns over negative reputation can be seen again in papers to Children and Young People Policy Committee.

Facial Recognition Tech and Data

In 2018, Bristol Live reported on a council meeting in which Marvin Rees said: “I’m more than happy to look at anything we can do to be more robust and effective at catching people. We walk a tightrope with this, our control centre has phenomenal technology – face recognition stuff – and it’s phenomenally effective, we could probably track everybody in the city.”

Bristol City Council’s Digital Strategy for 2022-2027 says it need to ‘Improve our ethical and inclusive use of research, data, insights and information to become more data-driven and evidence-led when making decisions.’ But there is no policy in place to protect Bristolians from exactly what this means when it comes to surveillance.

Bristol City Council’s Social Media Policy for Staff

As part of legal action I took against Bristol City Council under human rights breaches, the council’s external solicitor sent their External Social Media Policy to my solicitor with the explanation that it ‘has been in place since 2019.’

This is the policy the sent regarding staff surveilling Bristol residents. If this is supposedly it, it’s clear to see there is no policy in place at all. There is nothing to stop the council from spying on who they like for whatever reasons they like.

Send Surveillance

Bristol City Council’s stance regarding surveillance on Send families, is that it only happened to two people on two occasions.

Data under Subject Access Requests has been hard to get from Bristol City Council. I do not have all of my data and what I have received has been massively redacted to the point of useless. Bristol City Council would not supply my data to my solicitor during human rights legal action I took despite it being requested.

I have also come across my data held by the council given in other people’s SARs. I have seen evidence of Tweets of mine sent by Vikki Jervis to a school which my children had never been enrolled at and I have never been within several miles of. This correspondence stated: ‘This was brought to my attention by the BCC communications team. They monitor social media for us.’

In all of the data I have seen, there is evidence which suggests that at least seven parents including myself have been surveilled in some form. These are parents whom I know as being part of the Bristol Send community.

At People Scrutiny on 26 September 2022, Bristol’s Head of Legal and Deputy Monitoring Officer Nancy Rollason, claimed that systematic surveillance just didn’t happen. It only took place on two occasions.

Spying Incident One

This redacted email showed the council sharing a Tweet I made on the 08 February 2021 about inaccessible pavements. It has has not directly tagged Bristol City Council. This means they are monitoring individual people and actively searching them out.

Spying Incident Two

Another redacted email internally sharing a Tweet of mine made on 28 February 2021 that did not use the words Bristol City Council or tag in the council. Again, this has been clearly found by searching my name and building a profile.

Profiles built of Twitter users can be seen in internal correspondence dated 08 December 2021 regarding public forum contributions. ‘Apologies – not cllr Jen Smith, but Jen Smith AKA Chopsy Baby.’

Not once have I ever referred to myself as such when submitting public forum questions or statements.

Spying Incident Three

This redacted email sharing a Tweet made on 22 April 2021 which does not tag in the council or use the words Bristol City Council

Spying Incident X

Spying Incident Four

01 October 2021 – one incident of -in-person surveillance between Send and You and Bristol City Council.

Spying Incident Five

In this email dated 08/10/2021, Bristol City Council shows their ‘well defined plan’ amounting to surveillance in this email which says: ‘In the process of gathering as much evidence as they can and we will share what we have with you as soon as possible.’

The spying and collation continues throughout October 2021

Spying Incident Six

In January 2022, Sendias Service Send and You, show that once again they have been working with Bristol City Council to spy on me.

Spying Incident Seven

At the end of February 2022, the Disabled Children’s Team got in on the action by coming up with ‘a plan’ after searching out my post on Twitter.

These Tweets don’t tag the council in, so again they were searched for using a private account, then being widely distributed around Bristol City Council.

The Tweets created an email chain which even included Interim Director of Children, Families and Safer Communities Sarah Parker.

Spying Incident Eight

Undated email sharing online articles

Spying Incident Nine

Undated email showing collated Tweets. Ten out of twelve of these Tweets do not tag or hash tag Bristol City Council. You can see further down that this would have been around March early June 2022.

Spying Incident Ten

Email undated: ‘This is what has just been Tweeted’ showing real time surveillance

Spying Incident Eleven

From an email chain in July 2022

‘…other members of the team regularly flag comments/social posts of concern on SEND that may at some people been accounts liked to both of these people. Chopsy posts are regularly flagged for me. We have a team also outside of comms who monitor our social channels and respond to comments, the PACE team I believe.’

Spying Incident Twelve

Dated up to May 2022

Real-time spying: Page 4 shows that 23 minutes after I had made a post about the People Directorate, it was deliberately searched for and copied.

There are 12 Tweets, one has been entirely redacted.

Of those 11 that can be seen, 7 do not mention Bristol City Council, none tag Bristol City Council and none have hashtags.

Bristol City Council Officers Using Personal Accounts to Surveil, data collect on personal devices then share on

In People Scrutiny Commission on Monday 26 September 2022, I asked the following supplementary question in public forum:

“Does the council only use its own social media account to view and collate data from social media? Or do individual staff members use their private accounts instead or as well?

Former Director of Education, Richard Hanks replied: “Information is regularly collated by the comms team as part of when we’re hash tagged and things like and things so that would come up, that would be part of their day-to-day work. That would be our usual council practice to be looking to see where we’re referenced in these sorts of things.

“In terms of individuals, we would never be asking individuals to collate that information on their own or through their private accounts.”

This unredacted data sent to me shows this is not the case in the education team.

Returning to this unredacted one shows it was also not the case in the Disabled Children’s Team

What is the take away from this?

This is data for just one person. Data that was incredibly hard to get hold of. I needed to complain in public forum meetings of council meetings and also the ICO to get it over a process lasting the best part of a year. It has been heavily redacted, so there are clearly things said about me that they do not want me to know.

It is not data from all departments at the council which I have communication with. I do not for one minute believe I have all of my data. I have seen my data being given to other people in their Subject Access Requests. Data related to me and Send.

I am not the person whose wedding photographs were downloaded so I know for a fact there is another person who has also experienced extreme covert surveillance.

Bristol City Council clearly spies on certain residents as part of a systemic gathering of information. This is done through its comms team as a major strategy. This makes it systemic.

It is also done through its education and social care team for reasons that relate to spite. These departments have also done it to influence political policy around services. I have seen further evidence confirming worries that an executive director and director had over Send parents being in contact with Marvin Rees.

There is also evidence that Tweets have been shared with a high up manager in the NHS.

Legal action has been repeatedly blocked by Bristol City Council. It has attempted to frustrate the process at every possible opportunity.

This has now crossed administrations and we are still nowhere near having an independent investigation into what happened in Bristol and how its residents and their families can be protected from senior officers at Bristol City Council.