First, you may not even realize that in BC elementary and high schools, students of all ages (early years, middle years and youth) have been presented with surveys to complete. This has been done without requiring parental consent or even awareness.

The BC NDP Government refers to it as "passive consent". Teachers are providing children with tablet computers to answer questions about themselves, their families and others living in the household. Children who are reluctant and don’t know if they should do this are reassured it is all fine, they can trust this is all okay.

Some children may be too young to realize that it’s like talking to strangers. These days we should all know the dangers are worse with computers online. So, why would we be teaching young children to reveal information into a computer? (1)

Furthermore, who is PopDataBC and what do they do? Who funds it?

PopDataBC has a history extending back to 1996 and earlier (2). The website popdata.bc.ca has been registered since 2008 to Jim Mintha (o/a UBC). Under the umbrella of UBC Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), the data collected from students with so called “passive consent” is combined with other data sets including Medical Services Plan data and Stats Canada data. Various combinations of datasets are sold to others.

Even though government funds PopDataBC, MLA’s were not aware it exists.

The activities of PopDataBC should be halted while we learn the details. What is PopDataBC? How is it that it has access to health data? What data does it have access to? Who has PopDataBC been selling datasets to?

This is not something that the BC NDP Government or any government should be allowed to do. To expose children in schools to surveys without parental knowledge and consent, learning to do things that may expose them to more dangers in the online world.

Is this also evidence of poor judgment in Premier David Eby and the leadership of the BC NDP Government? Accepting and promoting a distortion, calling it "passive consent" when no consent is obtained; treating children as commodities, a source for more data collection, to be packaged and sold; and teaching young children to accept responding to computer surveys, giving information about themselves and others, without encouraging them to first discuss it with their parents and guardians.

Many British Columbians want a change in government and also a change in how government works.

Web links

(1) 2024 Feb 21 Helen Ward, Kids First Canada, data mining in BC schools.

https://rumble.com/v4gb5dw-bc-rising-wed-feb-21-2024-meeting-bc-school-surveys-bctownhalls2024-launch.html

https://kidsfirstcanada.org/2024/02/22/urgent-take-action-against-data-mining-mega-project-in-schools/

https://kidsfirstcanada.org

(2) PopDataBC Population Data BC,

https://www.popdata.bc.ca/

https://www.popdata.bc.ca/about/history

Population Data BC Youtube Channel (@populationdatabc1184)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCavuC5RfLRUv_8XZxYDR0FA

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Colleague looked into how long the data collection has been on
Public

A colleague was wondering when this collecting of data in schools began and found this web page on the UBC Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) and the Early Development Instrument: Data Collection,

Since 2001, HELP has collected province-wide data for over 350,000 kindergarten children in BC through it's EDI data collection, creating a unique and world-class data set that is not available in most other provinces or countries.

... The current cycle is Wave 9, which started in 2022/2023.

... EDI data is collected on a three-year schedule called a “Wave” to capture sufficient data in all school districts in the province. Large school districts participate in just one of the years in a wave, usually in the first or second year. Smaller school districts will participate in multiple years of a wave, in order to ensure that the total number of children per neighbourhood in a wave is sufficiently high to allow a reasonable determination of change over time.

... Parents and caregivers of kindergarten students receive information letters about the upcoming EDI data collection.

... The EDI uses informed passive consent to collect data. This means parents and caregivers are fully informed about the EDI project and the use of the data through information letters sent from HELP and the school district before the questionnaire is completed, but they do not have to actively complete a consent form.

... this consent model has been approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board (BREB).

... In December, parents/caregivers receive information about the EDI.

... In February, Teachers complete the EDI questionnaire.

... In June, School districts involved in data collection receive confidential school district reports.

... At the end of a three-year data collection Wave, public reports are produced with data at the provincial, school district and neighbourhood-level.

... More information on the use of informed passive consent permission protocol for EDI can be found here.

... To ensure personal information is secure, HELP has strong measures in place and follows all rules, agreements, practices, and legislation for safeguarding data. To learn more about HELP data protection and the Five Safes’ framework for HELP research, please visit our Safeguarding Data page.

In February, do parents/guardians remember notices received in December?

We see that under successive governments the bureaucracy has promoted these initiatives and allowed them to flourish. The leadership and majority parties have failed to hold it in check.

Web Links

2019 Journal article: Population Data BC: Supporting population data science in British Columbia, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7480325/

Population Data BC (PopData) was established as a multi-university data and education resource to support training and education, data linkage, and access to individual level, de-identified data for research in a wide variety of areas including human and community development and well-being. ...