Chasing a Meeting on Jools’ Law and Automatic Data Preservation
- Ellen Roome
- Feb 8
- 2 min read
Today, I formally wrote to Baroness Levitt’s office again to chase a previously offered meeting and to submit a further letter setting out our concerns in more detail.
The letter is supported by bereaved parents whose children died in circumstances where online activity may have played a role, and where critical digital evidence was not preserved early enough to allow proper investigation.
Why I wrote again
Despite existing legislation, families continue to face delay, confusion, and inconsistency when trying to preserve their child’s social media data after death. Once evidence is lost, it cannot be recovered. For many families, this means living indefinitely without answers.
The purpose of the letter is to underline why automatic data preservation following the death of a child is necessary, proportionate, and urgently needed.
Key concerns raised
In the letter, I set out the following issues:
Delay is not neutral
Digital evidence can be deleted or lost rapidly, particularly where overseas platforms or cross-border contact are involved.
Early misclassification is dangerous
When a child’s death is quickly labelled “non-suspicious”, opportunities to preserve and examine digital evidence often collapse entirely.
Not all online harms look like self-harm
Grooming, coercion, blackmail, and relational exploitation frequently occur through private messages and platform features that are invisible to manual phone review.
Existing mechanisms are failing families
Parents report confusion, refusals, and delays when relying on discretionary routes under current law. These systems depend on early certainty that often does not exist.
Automatic preservation is low burden and high protection
Preservation does not mean access or analysis. It simply ensures evidence is not lost while the circumstances of a child’s death are properly established.
Safeguarding must outweigh administrative convenience
The cost of preserving data that is never used is minimal. The cost of losing data that later proves relevant is permanent.
Why this matters
Jools’ Law is about ensuring that no child’s death is prematurely closed without full understanding, and that opportunities to protect other children are not lost because a simple, temporary safeguard was not applied.
I remain hopeful that a meeting will now be scheduled so these concerns can be properly discussed alongside other bereaved families who live with the consequences of evidence lost too soon.
I will continue to update this page as progress is made.
(Full letter attached)
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