The rollout of a school survey that asks teenagers intimate sexual questions should be paused due to human rights concerns, Scotland’s children’s commissioner has said.
The government census questions students as young as 14 about their sexual history, as well as drinking, drug and smoking habits. One question for S4 to S6 pupils says: “How much, if any, sexual experience have you had?” Multiple choice answers include “oral sex” and “vaginal or anal sex”.
Young people are also asked how many people they have had sex with in the past 12 months and for information on whether contraception was used.
At least half of Scotland’s councils have censored or reviewed the health and wellbeing census, or refused to send it out. Bruce Adamson, the children and young people’s commissioner, has now said it could impede upon students’ “right to privacy” amid concerns that answers could be traced back to respondents. Parents had been told that the survey was anonymous and only for research purposes.
The commissioner said: “Any survey conducted in schools needs to be administered using an approach that respects young people’s rights, including their right to privacy and right to give informed consent. We are concerned that the survey collects the pupil’s Scottish Candidate Number and young people need to be made aware that this may allow them to be identified.”
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Adamson called for the Scottish government to pause the rollout of the questionnaire “until it can address the concerns raised and ensure a rights compliant process”.
Meghan Gallacher, the Scottish Conservative children’s spokeswoman, said the commissioner’s intervention meant the SNP “can no longer choose to ignore legitimate worries about the appropriateness of these questions”.
A spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland said: “Failure to respond to these concerns will demonstrate not only a disregard for the rights of parents but may risk re-traumatising some young people who might have suffered from harmful sexual encounters.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish government said it continued to “fully support the administering of this important census” and would “continue to engage with the office of the Children’s Commissioner on this issue”. Information would only be shared by local authorities should “welfare concerns, such as abuse or harm” be identified.
