#kids-harms

Here are breaches of trust, safeguarding, privacy and law. They expose kids to risks of online harm and discrimination.

Charities and public services must not share kids or encourage kids to share their troubles with social media and ad systems.

Social media only allow sites to use their embeds if sites respect terms regarding age limits, parental consent and data collection.

Had these organisations paid attention to the terms, they may have realised that what they were doing was wrong.

If you are distressed by any content, please seek support. The Samaritans are available on 116 123.

Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Should a hospital...

No

Not only do you and your your child have a right to privacy, but when it comes to their health, a healthcare organisation's morals should not require law to prevent them from sharing the data.

Alder Hey shared tracking data with YouTube and Facebook regarding visits to their website.

Any surveillance of a visit to the site risks inferring a problem with your child.

When it includes pages to support parents and children with staying in hospital and about surgery, it is particular revealing of the situation.

Alder Hey's inclusion of analytics, advertising pixels and social media embeds have shared identifiable user behaviour data with systems they have no control over and for purposes that risk discrimination to the user.

Hitting national news

Research independent of this site discovered some of this tracking and tracking various other NHS sites.

NHS data breach: trusts shared patient details with Facebook without consent [Guardian, 27th May 2023]

Is it fixed?

No, although it appears to have improved.

There is still presence of tracking by Google systems, including for Google's advertising systems.

Raising the complaint

25h January 2023: Complaint raised regarding the presence primarily of YouTube tracking and Facebook tracking.

31st January 2023: Acknowledgement received

23rd February 2023: Email received advising a new site is being created.

27th May 2023: (unrelated to this site) Guardian publish research regarding Facebook

8th October 2023: Alder Hey found to still include tracking by Google, including YouTube.