ContactPoint database was surrogate Id card for children says minister

www.tele graph.co.uk

ContactPoint was turned off at noon on Friday, following pre-election pledges by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to scrap it, councils and charities warned that a replacement system needs to be introduced.

The database, which cost £224million to set up, was established following the murder of Victoria Climbié as a way for social services, police, teachers and doctors to keep track of at-risk children. It included details of every child’s name, age, address, school, GP and whether they had any contact with youth workers.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.guardian.co.uk

[edit on 8-8-2010 by BANANAMONTANA]

[edit on 8-8-2010 by BANANAMONTANA]

Delighted this has now shelved.

If you have children or not, in 10 years time every person that attends a UK school would have details of medical, education, and possible fingerprints on one large database.


This is a huge breach of personal liberties and I for one hated this.
How easy it must be to ask a child personal details to log onto a huge intrusion into personal life, and how easy it must be to prepare the future of our country by creating a "norm" of answering those questions, without asking why do you need to know?



Now to get rid of finger printing and retinal scans of children.





www.tele graph.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by BANANAMONTANA


Who finger prints and retinal scans kids then? I have three kids, you see and not once has anyone taken their DNA, fingerprints or scanned their retina.

Also, you say this database was a "breach" of civil liberties. Exactly how is it a "breach"? You do understand what the word means and what liberties you have, don't you? Please explain to me EXACTLY how this is a "breach". I wait with baited breath at what will undoubtedly be a poorly informed rant about "police state" this, or "nanny state" that lifted straight out of Rita Chakribatis Guide Book on Moral Indignation...

Personally, I don't see the fuss and bother over this. They have all this data anyway and all this database was doing was centralising all that info into one place, apparently to make things easier for the workers involved. In theory, it was a good idea.

Granted, it's implementation was shoddy, it's cost massively bloated and it's eventual availability to the professionals who it was supposed to help was limited but at the end of the day the Lib/Con pledge to get rid of it was more about point scoring than anything else.

The reason it was set up was because social workers had contact with Victoria Climbe but as she moved lost touch, despite her being identified as "high risk" and she was then brutally killed by her carers. Had the workers involved been able to track her whereabouts, health etc and co-ordinated properly with other councils, it may well have been avoided.

To bin it totally brings us back to the point where someone who is being monitored for suspected abuse or neglect, or if a child is otherwise deemed "at risk" only has to move a few miles to a different local authority area and, poof, they have dropped off the radar of the social workers.

Aside from your grandstanding about supposed "breaches" of "civil liberties" (what exactly are these people bleat about?), what do you propose is done to fill the gap?

Or is the fact the Government holds data on some "at risk" children more henious an idea to you than someone beating, starving and abusing a child to death because they are able to get away with it simply by moving?

I am so privileged to meet a true psychic that can foresee what I think and may or not believe. wow

Apologies not your personal assistant and would recommend google to search for retinal scanning and fingerprinting in schools. There is also a little input box on this site as well..go on it wont bite you..

You do state your children have not had fingerprints for school library , that;s ok ..it's only some other child it effects.

f I was not made of sterner stuff I do believe I may have been intimidated by your capital letters, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and my eyesight is just dandy.



Let me draw your attention to the human rights regarding the contact point database.. I was kind and spent some time providing links for your perusal but feel free to research yourself as mentioned before. Lets face it many a QC has lined their pockets with human rights cases.

ROWNTREE TRUST

The report assesses 46 databases across the major government departments, and finds that A quarter of the public-sector databases reviewed are almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law; they should be scrapped or substantially redesigned. More than half have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness and could fall foul of a legal challenge.:

Red means that a database is almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law and should be scrapped or substantially redesigned. The collection and sharing of sensitive personal data may be disproportionate, or done without our consent, or without a proper legal basis; or there may be other major privacy or operational problems. Most of these systems already have a high public profile. One of them (the National DNA Database) has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, and both the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats have promised to scrap many of the others.

ContactPoint, which is a national index of all children in England. It will hold biographical and contact information for each child and record their relationship with public services, including a note on whether any ‘sensitive service’ is working with the child;

page 17

At the time of writing, the Government proposes to begin deployment in 2009. Because of the privacy concerns and the legal issues with maintaining sensitive data with no effective opt-out, and because the security is inadequate (having been designed as an afterthought), and because it provides a mechanism for registering all children that complements the National Identity Register, we rate this as Privacy impact: red.

Hmm it's not like the use of Statuary laws have in anyway breached the human rights of UK citizens before...?

DNA database

stop and search

Child abuse of a minority is not a valid reason to obtain and retain the records of millions of UK children. Victoria and other notable public scandals involving children at risk were known to social services, the police and other agencies . Did this help protect them no...The inability of agencies to perform their basic job description is no reason to push policies through the back door. The police involved in the Victoria Climbie case were in fact prosecuted for their breach of duty of care.

You mention how can they trace people that move from one area to another.. I mean really where did they move to the caves of Afghanistan..it took one person to make a phone call to the dhss, or child benefits or council tax to trace that child....utter codswallop to suggest we need a huge database..when the people who are data mining it cant perform basic tasks.. such as follow up on reports. Is the computer to umplug itself and do the job.


Could people opt out of the database..no they couldn't. It was however two tiered wherein the wealthy and the famous could have their children shielded, but why shield..was it not secure?

Parents are treated as unable to care for their own children,,but hey the State do a much better job no? The computer says so.


Anyway if you are very perplexed.. you still have time to sign up for the security of the ID card..need to hurry though last I heard it's getting a kick in botty as well..could get discount rates ..



Rita never heard of her, is she a neighbour of yours? if you are refering to Shami Chakrabarti , jolly good we have people that work to question the plethora of laws that were given royal assent during labour.

On a personal level I do not wish to become totally passive and reliant on the state to keep me “safe”, I will not be persuaded that “safety” as defined by the state compensates for my loss of my freedom. Why hey why not engender fear in the mass of plebeians by implying the parents are killing their children and only the computer protects. This database was backdoor ID cards of the future..

But hey as I said that s my personal opinion.

Toodle pip.. hurry now ..time for applying for the ID card is running out.

reply to post by stumason



One in three secondary schools fingerprinting pupils as Big Brother regime sweeps education system

news.bbc.co.uk...Eye scanners for school children

Information Commissioners Office

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by BANANAMONTANA

 

The reason it was set up was because social workers had contact with Victoria Climbe but as she moved lost touch, despite her being identified as "high risk" and she was then brutally killed by her carers. Had the workers involved been able to track her whereabouts, health etc and co-ordinated properly with other councils, it may well have been avoided.

To bin it totally brings us back to the point where someone who is being monitored for suspected abuse or neglect, or if a child is otherwise deemed "at risk" only has to move a few miles to a different local authority area and, poof, they have dropped off the radar of the social workers.

Aside from your grandstanding about supposed "breaches" of "civil liberties" (what exactly are these people bleat about?), what do you propose is done to fill the gap?

Or is the fact the Government holds data on some "at risk" children more henious an idea to you than someone beating, starving and abusing a child to death because they are able to get away with it simply by moving?

Revealed: The horrific trade in British children for sex


Another glaring example of how social workers fail in a basic duty of care.

no answers to the other posts ? thought not!

Her mother says her pleas to police and social services fell on deaf ears. "I used to say: 'When are you going to do something?' They'd say they couldn't do anything unless she complains, but when do you decide that a child has to complain? They said they could do nothing. She was 13. I'd take down the number plates of cars as they drove away, but the police wouldn't accept them."

Social services said she could no longer live in the same place and put her into foster care. The downward spiral accelerated. At 16, Joanne had been missing for seven weeks. "I took social services to court as they said they didn't have a duty of care," says Christine. "The judge said they did, and the next day she was found, locked in a house with an Asian man, with the door handle taken off."

Originally posted by BANANAMONTANA
no answers to the other posts ? thought not!

I do apologise for having a life, going to work and taking care of my new born son. I really should have taken the time to debate this non-issue with you instead.

My bad...

no worries , didn't seem like a non issue to you on the 8th.

bye now

[edit on 16-8-2010 by BANANAMONTANA]