1001 Smart Cities
🇬🇧 Bristol

Think Family Database and Insight Bristol's Risk-Scoring Models

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified · ◆ 22 sourced claims, none individually verified yet

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

Bristol City Council set up a data team, Insight Bristol, in 2015, staffed jointly with Avon and Somerset Police. From 2016 it ran the Think Family Database: a single view of a family drawn from around 35 council, police, health, benefits and school datasets, including data on ethnic origin and criminal offences, processed under legal gateways rather than consent. Machine-learning models scored children for risk of sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, and being out of education, employment or training. Two of the three were switched off in 2023. The database itself is still running.

Live 📅 since 2016 🤖 Uses AI
Outcome📉 Scaled back
Evidence📊 Independent
what does this mean?The strongest source is an independent non-academic evaluation: an audit office, a government or EU review, or an NGO. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byBristol City Council (Insight Bristol, a data team staffed jointly with Avon and Somerset Police)
Scale🏙️ City-wide
FundingBristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police; the team was created under the national Troubled Families, now Supporting Families, Programme

📊 Impact

The council's own page puts the database at around 55,000 families. In 2021 it answered a freedom-of-information request saying around 450 children were flagged as at risk of sexual exploitation by the model, at a precision of around 80 per cent; the campaign group Big Brother Watch said about 90 of them may have been wrongly flagged. The one surviving model, for risk of not being in education, employment or training, is entered on the UK government's Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard: around 150 safeguarding professionals use the front-end report each month, the score sits among more than 70 other indicators of vulnerability, and the record states there is no automated decision making based on it.

🎓 Lesson

Council staff judged the two exploitation models not fit for operational use and stopped them in 2023. An independent evaluation by the non-profit Social Finance, commissioned by Somerset Council in partnership with Bristol and published in June 2025, called the risk-scoring models the weakest element of the project and said a lack of accuracy had undermined them; staff reported that children who should have been identified as vulnerable were not listed in the results. Precision was the number the council could quote; recall was the failure that mattered. What stopped was the scoring, not the collection: the same feeds still assemble under the same legal gateways, and records responses suggest neither the council nor the police kept a record of the decision to stop.

📡 Data & IoTArtificial intelligencePrivacy & personal dataSafety & security

Sources

↗ Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator)Operator's own service page. States Insight Bristol is a Bristol City Council data team set up in 2015 in response to the national Troubled Families Programme; that the Think Family Database holds information from approximately 55,000 families; lists the contributing bodies (Bristol City Council, Avon and Somerset Police, Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions, SCWCSU, Barnardo's, NHS); and describes a surviving 'Risk of NEET data model'.
↗ Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol privacy notice (operator, PDF)Statutory privacy notice for the Insight Bristol products. Lists the data categories held, including personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin and data relating to criminal offences and incidents; names the legal bases as legal obligation, official authority, social protection and substantial public interest, and enumerates the 'legal gateways' relied on; describes the Think Family Database, Children and Families View, Think Family Education app and the NEET modelling; and records the onward sharing to Avon and Somerset Police's Lighthouse safeguarding unit. Text extracted locally from the PDF; the hosted file is a scanned-style PDF that summarising fetchers cannot read.
↗ GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)Published 28 January 2025The UK government's public algorithm register entry for the one model still in use. Carries the ~150 safeguarding professionals a month figure, the 'over 70 other indicators of vulnerabilities' framing, the statement that there is no automated decision making based on the model, the precision-and-recall review commitment, and a Data Protection Impact Assessment created 01/11/2018 and last updated July 2024.
↗ IICSA, Child sexual exploitation by organised networks, H.7 Predictive analytics (statutory inquiry)Published February 2022Statutory public inquiry. Bristol was one of six case study areas. Section H.7 describes the Think Family Database bringing together 35 different datasets and the Insight team, funded jointly with the police, producing a weekly automated list of children at heightened risk of sexual exploitation, supplied to Avon and Somerset Police's Operation Topaz. The host returns HTTP 403 to every automated client tried (browser user agent, curl, and the UK Government Web Archive mirror); existence and wording established by exact-phrase search only.
↗ Social Finance evaluation of Bristol's Think Family Database, via Data to Insight (independent evaluation)Published 23 June 2025Publication page for the independent evaluation: 'Somerset Council, in partnership with Bristol Council, commissioned Social Finance to deliver an independent evaluation of the implementation and impact of single view products being used in Bristol'. The linked PDF is glyph-subset encoded with no ToUnicode map, so its text could not be extracted; its findings are quoted here from the journalism that obtained and read it.
Show 5 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)Published 25 June 2026Joint investigation with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable, built on hundreds of pages obtained under public records requests. Carries the Social Finance review's 'weakest element' and 'lack of accuracy' wording, the staff report that children who should have been identified 'were not listed', the 2016 launch by Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police, and the finding that neither authority kept records of the decision to stop the CSE and CCE models by June 2023. Most of the article concerns Avon and Somerset Police's own force-wide models, which are a separate system and are not described in this entry.
↗ The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)Published 25 June 2026Carries the 2016 launch and that the database 'is still in operation today'; the Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Criminal Exploitation models and the risk factors feeding them; the council's 'not fit for operational use' conclusion and 2023 shutdown; the Children's Commissioner's response; and the council statement that it now uses no predictive analytics other than the NEET model.
↗ The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)Published 16 January 2026Carries the 55,000 families and approximately 35 datasets figures, the May 2023 shutdown date for the two models, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation's 2021 findings on bias and on 'legal gateways', and Cllr Christine Townsend's statement that the authority uses no predictive analytics beyond NEET identification.
↗ The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media)Published 20 July 2021The original exposure, built on Big Brother Watch freedom-of-information requests. Carries the three models, the roughly 450 children flagged as at risk of sexual exploitation as of June 2021, the council's stated precision of around 80 per cent, Big Brother Watch's estimate that about 90 may have been wrongly flagged, and the council's response that race is not an input.
↗ GOV.UK Supporting Families programme blog — reducing youth crime and exploitation in Bristol (national government)Published 8 April 2021National government blog confirming Bristol's Insight Analytical Hub and the pre-existing Think Family Database, and a further targeted analytical product going live in November 2019 under the Safer Options programme.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2016. 8 of 10 sources carry a publication date, from 8 April 2021 to 25 June 2026.

When the sources were published

  1. GOV.UK Supporting Families programme blog — reducing youth crime and exploitation in Bristol (national government)
  2. The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media)
  3. IICSA, Child sexual exploitation by organised networks, H.7 Predictive analytics (statutory inquiry)
  4. GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)
  5. Social Finance evaluation of Bristol's Think Family Database, via Data to Insight (independent evaluation)
  6. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
  7. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
  8. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Entered the record
  2. Sources last read

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 22 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 22 addressable claims, 10 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 22

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-a2de878acab015ee quantitative
Bristol City Council set up a data team, Insight Bristol, in 2015, staffed jointly with Avon and Somerset Police
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The council's own page states: 'Insight Bristol is a Bristol City Council data team. It was set up in 2015 in response to the national Troubled Families Programme.' Liberty Investigates describes Insight Bristol as a joint team of data scientists originally formed by Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police, and the council privacy notice names Avon and Somerset Police as a supplier of data.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator)
  2. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
Claim 2 clm-a9864c655d6ace23 quantitative
From 2016 it ran the Think Family Database
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Bristol Cable states the database 'launched in 2016 and is still in operation today'; Liberty Investigates writes that it was 'Launched in 2016 by the Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police'.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
  2. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
Claim 3 clm-0378ad87af736d60 quantitative
a single view of a family drawn from around 35 council, police, health, benefits and school datasets
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The IICSA inquiry section describes the Think Family Database bringing together 35 different datasets about children from education, housing services, the police, welfare systems and mental health; the Bristol Cable independently gives approximately 35 datasets from council, police and other agencies; the council privacy notice states the purpose is to 'produce a single view of a person for safeguarding professionals to access' and names the Department for Work and Pensions, NHS bodies, educational settings and Avon and Somerset Police among the sources.
Caveat
The count of 35 comes from the IICSA inquiry (2022) and the Bristol Cable (2026); the council's own page lists the contributing bodies but does not publish a dataset count. The IICSA page could not be fetched (HTTP 403 to every client tried), so the locator here is taken from the council privacy notice instead.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. IICSA, Child sexual exploitation by organised networks, H.7 Predictive analytics (statutory inquiry)
  2. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
  3. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol privacy notice (operator, PDF)
Claim 4 clm-7bc8a0b6af2ae7f6 descriptive
including data on ethnic origin and criminal offences
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Insight Bristol privacy notice lists among the categories collected 'Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin' and 'Data relating to criminal offences and incidents'. Extracted from the PDF locally.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol privacy notice (operator, PDF)
Claim 5 clm-54b025581a43c408 descriptive
processed under legal gateways rather than consent
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The privacy notice states: 'To provide this service, we have identified the following legal basis under the UK GDPR and legal gateways which allow us to process your data', and names the bases as legal obligation, official authority, social protection and substantial public interest, not consent. The Bristol Cable reports the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation criticising in 2021 the use of 'legal gateways' to collect large amounts of sensitive data instead of building trust, noting 'Legality is not the same as legitimacy'.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol privacy notice (operator, PDF)
  2. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
Claim 6 clm-cab712a9538665c4 descriptive
Machine-learning models scored children for risk of sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, and being out of education, employment or training
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Bristol Cable in 2021: 'There are three main models used by the Think Family program, that look at the risk of children suffering sexual abuse, criminality or being out of work, education and training (NEET).' The 2026 reporting names the two withdrawn models as the Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) models and describes them generating risk scores for individual children.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media)
  2. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
Claim 7 clm-842f8383e37405ad quantitative
Two of the three were switched off in 2023
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Bristol Cable: 'The council decided the models were not fit for operational use and shut them down in 2023.' Liberty Investigates dates the decision to stop the CSE and CCE models to by June 2023; the Cable's January 2026 piece gives May 2023.
Caveat
Sources give May 2023 and 'by June 2023'; the entry says only 2023.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
  2. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
  3. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
Claim 8 clm-fd234828bef30c4e descriptive
The database itself is still running
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Bristol Cable, June 2026: the database 'is still in operation today'. The council's service page describes the Think Family Database in the present tense, and the government's algorithm register entry for the NEET model hosted on it was published in January 2025.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
  2. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator)
  3. GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)
Claim 9 clm-18dd42cd3a286566 quantitative
The council's own page puts the database at around 55,000 families
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The council page states the database holds information from approximately 55,000 families; the Bristol Cable independently reports the database monitoring 55,000 families in Bristol.
Caveat
Other counts measure different things: the Bristol Cable reports it 'understands' the database holds records relating to around 475,000 current and former residents. That figure is hedged in the source and is not used here.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator)
  2. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
Claim 10 clm-00efab65aff2af6e quantitative
In 2021 it answered a freedom-of-information request saying around 450 children were flagged as at risk of sexual exploitation by the model
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Bristol Cable, July 2021: 'Around 450 children were flagged as being at risk of sexual exploitation by the model as of June, according to Bristol City Council.' The figure came to the paper through a Big Brother Watch freedom-of-information request.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media)
Claim 11 clm-1bcce680a48fd33c quantitative
at a precision of around 80 per cent
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Bristol Cable: 'the sexual abuse model has a precision rate (the percentage of those flagged as being at risk of being identified correctly) of around 80%'. The council supplied the figure in response to a freedom-of-information request.
Caveat
This is precision only. No recall figure was ever published, which is what the later evaluation faulted.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media)
Claim 12 clm-2243dda409a448d3 quantitative
the campaign group Big Brother Watch said about 90 of them may have been wrongly flagged
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Jake Hurfurt, head of research and investigations at Big Brother Watch, is quoted in the Bristol Cable putting roughly 90 of the 450 flagged children in the category that 'may have been wrongly flagged', derived from the council's own 80 per cent precision figure.
Caveat
This is Big Brother Watch's arithmetic on the council's precision figure, not a separately measured count, and the entry attributes it as such.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media)
Claim 13 clm-fcbcd26e90c67335 descriptive
The one surviving model, for risk of not being in education, employment or training, is entered on the UK government's Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The record is titled 'NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) Model Hosted on the Think Family Database (TFD)' and was published on GOV.UK on 28 January 2025. The council's own page describes a surviving 'Risk of NEET data model', and Cllr Christine Townsend told the Bristol Cable the authority uses no predictive analytics other than to identify children at risk of becoming NEET.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)
  2. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator)
  3. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
Claim 14 clm-23e19ee2c7700e19 quantitative
around 150 safeguarding professionals use the front-end report each month
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The transparency record states: 'Overall, there are around 150 safeguarding professionals from Bristol City Council using the front-end report for the TFD (known as the Children & Families View) each month.'
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)
Claim 15 clm-d01dac650bf8496d quantitative
the score sits among more than 70 other indicators of vulnerability
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The transparency record states: 'The model is then used as an indicator of vulnerability - there are over 70 other indicators of vulnerabilities for safeguarding leads to fully understand what action /decision is required.'
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)
Claim 16 clm-59f111a7a18c6bc3 descriptive
the record states there is no automated decision making based on it
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim from the transparency record: 'There is no automated decision making based on the NEET model.'
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register)
Claim 17 clm-aceb4a17173e29ed quantitative
Council staff judged the two exploitation models not fit for operational use and stopped them in 2023
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The phrase 'not fit for operational use' is the council's own, quoted by the Bristol Cable and by Liberty Investigates as the staff assessment behind the shutdown, which both date to 2023.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
  2. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
  3. The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media)
Claim 18 clm-6fa8c0f9893000d5 quantitative
An independent evaluation by the non-profit Social Finance, commissioned by Somerset Council in partnership with Bristol and published in June 2025
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Data to Insight publication page states: 'Somerset Council, in partnership with Bristol Council, commissioned Social Finance to deliver an independent evaluation of the implementation and impact of single view products being used in Bristol', first published 23 June 2025. Liberty Investigates describes the same review and reports it became public only after a records request.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Social Finance evaluation of Bristol's Think Family Database, via Data to Insight (independent evaluation)
  2. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
Claim 19 clm-6f0b7be8d6e38346 descriptive
called the risk-scoring models the weakest element of the project and said a lack of accuracy had undermined them
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Liberty Investigates quotes the review describing 'the risk-scoring models as the weakest element of the project' and saying a 'lack of accuracy' had undermined their potential to be useful.
Caveat
Quoted from the journalism that obtained the review, not read in the report itself: the published PDF is glyph-subset encoded and its text could not be extracted.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
Claim 20 clm-ff8c2a58b9aa30ff descriptive
staff reported that children who should have been identified as vulnerable were not listed in the results
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Liberty Investigates: 'Bristol City Council staff said children who should have been identified as vulnerable were not listed in the results.'
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
Claim 21 clm-c6346e995f7d555e descriptive
the same feeds still assemble under the same legal gateways
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The council's page and privacy notice both describe the Think Family Database and its data flows in the present tense, on the same legal bases and legal gateways, and the Bristol Cable reports the database still in operation in June 2026. Only the two scoring models were withdrawn.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator)
  2. Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol privacy notice (operator, PDF)
  3. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
Claim 22 clm-32742e0695d170eb descriptive
records responses suggest neither the council nor the police kept a record of the decision to stop
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Liberty Investigates: 'responses to public records requests from the council and the police suggest neither authority kept records about the decision to stop using the CSE and CCE models by June 2023.' The Bristol Cable reports the same finding.
Caveat
Both sources hedge with 'suggest'; the entry keeps that hedge.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation)
  2. The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-25-bristol-baseline effective 2026-08-25 · created 2026-08-25

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:ca9092d7e85a4cfbd065e14a46a77b485b8f71fecdca21dc56d1e5feb4a001ae
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
22
of 22 claims mapped
10
source dossiers
7
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Bristol City Council (Insight Bristol, a data team staffed jointly with Avon and Somerset Police)
Actor types
city-government, regional-government
Funding model
public
Funding description
Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police; the team was created under the national Troubled Families, now Supporting Families, Programme
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

10 source dossiers

Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol and the Think Family Database (operator) bristol.gov.uk · 5 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-21cc8ef43151fb5c
Publisher
Name not classified · bristol.gov.uk
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Operator's own service page. States Insight Bristol is a Bristol City Council data team set up in 2015 in response to the national Troubled Families Programme; that the Think Family Database holds information from approximately 55,000 families; lists the contributing bodies (Bristol City Council, Avon and Somerset Police, Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions, SCWCSU, Barnardo's, NHS); and describes a surviving 'Risk of NEET data model'.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Bristol City Council — Insight Bristol privacy notice (operator, PDF) bristol.gov.uk · 4 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-da72b54af61289ad
Publisher
Name not classified · bristol.gov.uk
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Statutory privacy notice for the Insight Bristol products. Lists the data categories held, including personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin and data relating to criminal offences and incidents; names the legal bases as legal obligation, official authority, social protection and substantial public interest, and enumerates the 'legal gateways' relied on; describes the Think Family Database, Children and Families View, Think Family Education app and the NEET modelling; and records the onward sharing to Avon and Somerset Police's Lighthouse safeguarding unit. Text extracted locally from the PDF; the hosted file is a scanned-style PDF that summarising fetchers cannot read.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard — Bristol City Council NEET model (public register) gov.uk · 5 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-561498af9ff7b169
Publisher
Name not classified · gov.uk
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-01-28
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The UK government's public algorithm register entry for the one model still in use. Carries the ~150 safeguarding professionals a month figure, the 'over 70 other indicators of vulnerabilities' framing, the statement that there is no automated decision making based on the model, the precision-and-recall review commitment, and a Data Protection Impact Assessment created 01/11/2018 and last updated July 2024.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
IICSA, Child sexual exploitation by organised networks, H.7 Predictive analytics (statutory inquiry) iicsa.org.uk · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-34debd022745f267
Publisher
Name not classified · iicsa.org.uk
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Statutory public inquiry. Bristol was one of six case study areas. Section H.7 describes the Think Family Database bringing together 35 different datasets and the Insight team, funded jointly with the police, producing a weekly automated list of children at heightened risk of sexual exploitation, supplied to Avon and Somerset Police's Operation Topaz. The host returns HTTP 403 to every automated client tried (browser user agent, curl, and the UK Government Web Archive mirror); existence and wording established by exact-phrase search only.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Social Finance evaluation of Bristol's Think Family Database, via Data to Insight (independent evaluation) datatoinsight.org · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-617fc9f5322b5974
Publisher
Name not classified · datatoinsight.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-06-23
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Publication page for the independent evaluation: 'Somerset Council, in partnership with Bristol Council, commissioned Social Finance to deliver an independent evaluation of the implementation and impact of single view products being used in Bristol'. The linked PDF is glyph-subset encoded with no ToUnicode map, so its text could not be extracted; its findings are quoted here from the journalism that obtained and read it.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Liberty Investigates, with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable (media investigation) libertyinvestigates.org.uk · 8 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-1e8b7205f4563aff
Publisher
Name not classified · libertyinvestigates.org.uk
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-06-25
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Joint investigation with WIRED, Lighthouse Reports and the Bristol Cable, built on hundreds of pages obtained under public records requests. Carries the Social Finance review's 'weakest element' and 'lack of accuracy' wording, the staff report that children who should have been identified 'were not listed', the 2016 launch by Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Police, and the finding that neither authority kept records of the decision to stop the CSE and CCE models by June 2023. Most of the article concerns Avon and Somerset Police's own force-wide models, which are a separate system and are not described in this entry.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
The Bristol Cable — Children's Commissioner 'deeply concerned' over Bristol data tools (media) thebristolcable.org · 7 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-0ea2b67e6e8c6784
Publisher
Name not classified · thebristolcable.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-06-25
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Carries the 2016 launch and that the database 'is still in operation today'; the Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Criminal Exploitation models and the risk factors feeding them; the council's 'not fit for operational use' conclusion and 2023 shutdown; the Children's Commissioner's response; and the council statement that it now uses no predictive analytics other than the NEET model.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
The Bristol Cable — Think Family and the fight for transparency over data profiling (media) thebristolcable.org · 6 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-9d5c846edd944188
Publisher
Name not classified · thebristolcable.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-01-16
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Carries the 55,000 families and approximately 35 datasets figures, the May 2023 shutdown date for the two models, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation's 2021 findings on bias and on 'legal gateways', and Cllr Christine Townsend's statement that the authority uses no predictive analytics beyond NEET identification.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
The Bristol Cable — how a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm (media) thebristolcable.org · 4 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-dc8840e820011cae
Publisher
Name not classified · thebristolcable.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2021-07-20
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The original exposure, built on Big Brother Watch freedom-of-information requests. Carries the three models, the roughly 450 children flagged as at risk of sexual exploitation as of June 2021, the council's stated precision of around 80 per cent, Big Brother Watch's estimate that about 90 may have been wrongly flagged, and the council's response that race is not an input.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
GOV.UK Supporting Families programme blog — reducing youth crime and exploitation in Bristol (national government) supportingfamilies.blog.gov.uk · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-848eb13bdf87e9cb
Publisher
Name not classified · supportingfamilies.blog.gov.uk
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2021-04-08
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-25
Dossier created
2026-08-25
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

National government blog confirming Bristol's Insight Analytical Hub and the pre-existing Think Family Database, and a further targeted analytical product going live in November 2019 under the Safer Options programme.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇨🇳 Health Code (健康码) — Hangzhou's Pandemic Status QR · Hangzhou Both compute a status for a person out of merged feeds. Hangzhou's was stood down; Bristol kept the collection. 🇵🇭 Greater Metro Manila Hazard and Exposure Mapping (GMMA READY) · Manila The same modelling, a different subject: Manila scores places and publishes the maps, Bristol scored children. 🇨🇳 Wuhan City Safety Risk Monitoring & Early Warning Platform · Wuhan Both merge many feeds into a risk score that reports upward. Wuhan scores infrastructure, Bristol scored people.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision🤖 Artificial intelligence guide🏙️ Bristol city profile📡 Data & IoT projects📖 Adaptive traffic signals📖 ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition)📖 Automated speed enforcement (speed cameras)
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Think Family Database and Insight Bristol's Risk-Scoring Models” — Bristol, United Kingdom. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/bristol-think-family-database/ (last verified 2026-08-25). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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