The Licensing of Child Location Services Bill is a Private Member’s Bill introduced into the House of Commons by Judy Mallaber MP on March 15^th

ARCH welcomes this Bill. We are extremely concerned about the rapidly expanding market in devices to track the whereabouts of children and young people. We believe this to be a classic example of a technology looking for a market, which in this case has been created by the exploitation of parents’ understandable, though largely groundless, fears for their children’s safety. We would observe that a mobile tracking device only tells a parent its own location, which is not necessarily the same as that of the child, and we cannot see that a person who is not sufficiently mature to be out alone will be afforded any protection by a tracking device; rather, we fear that such devices may lull parents into a false sense of security, whilst giving children the message that the world is a fearful and dangerous place.

Worse still, in our view, are devices that allow parents to download a log of where their child has been. This seems to us a cynical exploitation of lack of trust between parents and child, and one that will encourage children into deceit. Some of ARCH’s young members have been remarkably quick to point out the potential for increasing pocket-money by babysitting other young peoples’ tracking devices!

While we would infinitely prefer that location devices were not available at all, we accept that our wish may be unrealistic. We therefore support a licensing regime, and hope that the Bill will be well-supported.

We do have some concerns that we would hope to see addressed if the Bill is given a Committee Stage.

The corrupt disclosure of child location information presents a significant threat to children’s safety, particularly in circumstances where it is important that the family’s home address is not known, and a parent’s contact with a child is limited by the courts to a contact centre, or where information is given to a person who may commit offences against a child. For that reason, we should like to see a specific criminal offence of unauthorised disclosure of location information, and would offer as an example ss108-111 of the Education Act 2005 which specify criminal sanctions for unauthorised disclosure of details about Education Maintenance Allowance or free school meal entitlement.

Clause 2 proposes a maximum licensing period of 5 years, but we should prefer to see the initial licence granted for 18 months, and subsequently renewable every 3-5 years. We believe that a set of advertising standards should be agreed in order to prevent exaggerated claims being made about a product, and that a company’s compliance with these should be one of the factors taken into consideration whenever application for renewal is made.

Clause 3 provides for a parent or guardian to consent to tracking on the child’s behalf. We believe that tracking should only be permitted where the child consents. There is no lower age limit for obtaining informed consent, and this particular issue lends itself to very simple explanation. We suggest that a child who is genuinely too young to understand such an explanation is also likely to be too young to be unaccompanied by an adult, and that inability to consent would therefore offer a degree of protection.

Clause 6(3)(b) provides that the Secretary of State may make such exemptions and exceptions to the provisions of the Bill as s/he sees fit. The Bill provides a framework in which the requirement for basic security and integrity is not onerous. We therefore cannot see that there should be any exemptions or exceptions.

Overall this Bill is timely, and we believe the licensing regime that it proposes to be essential. We hope that it will make good progress.

11^th July 2006

Terri Dowty
Director
Action on Rights for Children