NO2ID

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story ... 21,00.html

ContactPoint extends surveillance society

Thursday June 28, 2007
The Guardian

Beverley Hughes cites Lord Laming's report into the tragic death of
Victoria Climbié as "the reason we are bringing this [ContactPoint]
system in" (Letters, June 26). What she fails to point out is that
her own department's draft guidance for the use of the ContactPoint
database appears to rule out the inclusion of children who are only
temporarily in England. Victoria Climbié never had a settled address
in England and it seemed to many of those dealing with her and her
great aunt that they might soon return to France. Had ContactPoint
been in existence it seems highly likely that Victoria would not have
been on it.

So ContactPoint would have done nothing to improve Victoria's
situation. Indeed it is difficult to see how a database - especially
one that arbitrarily excludes some children on purely bureaucratic
grounds - could ever be a useful tool in reducing child maltreatment.
The sad truth of the matter seems to be that the government has been
determined to introduce a computer system to monitor England's 11
million children and young people, even though it is clear to most
informed observers that this will do little or nothing to make them
more secure.

A conclusion which it is hard to avoid is that the government has
cynically used the issue of child abuse and neglect as a pretext to
extend the surveillance society to those under 18, whose privacy is
now seriously threatened by this sinister Orwellian development.

Chris Mills
Sevenoaks, Kent

Pretty much all of the huge changes currently being wrought under the Every Child Matters agenda (including ContactPoint) have been 'sold' as a response to the tragic death of Victoria Climbie. In fact, the plans were already there and formed a part of the government's whole 'modernising' programme which began, I think, in 1999. I don't think I'm being too cynical to suggest that the death of poor Victoria became a convenient springboard. This is not to say that some change didn't need to happen but to portray ContactPoint as a purely humanitarian response that is desgined to prevent another Victoria Climbie is disingenuous at best and at worst a lie.