NO2ID

[Andrew Watson]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7115546.stm

Child database system postponed

Ministers are postponing a new database on every child in England, pending a security review and changes to the system including its access controls.

Children's minister Kevin Brennan told MPs there would be a five-month delay to the £224m system, ContactPoint.

The security review was ordered after the loss of child benefit discs.

ContactPoint holds name, address, date of birth, gender, parental contact information, details of school and any professionals working with the child.

It does not include actual case records.

...

Shadow Children’s Minister Maria Miller said: "The government should also use this opportunity to see whether it really is necessary to have a database for every single child in the country, accessible to 330,000 people, given the significant amount of concern that this could overload the system and lead to a dumbing down of information.

"We have always supported, as an alternative, a slimmed-down tightly controlled database which focuses on those genuinely vulnerable children."

[FishNChipPapers]

How do they know the security review and the implementation of changes will take 5 months? It's interesting that the Minister emphasises changes due to feedback received over the last few months. If I was cynical (perish the thought) this could be the government using the security concerns and review as a smokescreen to cover up the fact that yet another project is delayed (not that I want to see ContactPoint implemented - an indefinite delay is fine with me). Worryingly, if my cynicism is justified then it could mean that they are just paying lip-service to the security review. Wouldn't it make more sense, if security were the real concern, to announce an indefinite delay until they were confident the security and privacy requirements were adequately addressed?

[Baron von Lotsov.]

This whole thing is going to happen in stages. First they stop the projects that present a risk, then they review them and then they cancel them. I don't think we can expect the government to make any rash decisions on the fly since this is most likely to have got them into this situation in the first place.

It cuts both ways of course. If they cancel just out of the blue the same approach will be apparent in announcing new schemes of questionable merit. So I'm more than happy for them to do the sensible thing and spend some time assessing it before making a decision. I'm confidant that will cause them to cancel and of course it does take the immediate heat off them as well. This is important because the government does not give stuff away, it is always an exchange but it's just we have a better hand of cards now to play with.
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"It's easy to win forgiveness for being wrong; being right is what gets you into real trouble."

Bjarne Stroustrup

[Brian Gladman]

[Baron von Lotsov.]

Yes but they won't win like that. All it will do is postpone the heat and another uproar will ensue when they announce they are to continue with it, but the difference is that it will look like an even bigger stitch up after the public thinks they have properly checked it out. So in the meantime we should be pressing for a more independent and open review process. This will highlight the problems, these problems will be discussed in the press and then whatever they want to do they will have to cancel or witness their support plummet substantially further.
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"It's easy to win forgiveness for being wrong; being right is what gets you into real trouble."

Bjarne Stroustrup

[Casual Visitor]

Looks like a very neat way to a)hide delay and b)wait till the public fuss has died down and the media have forgotten about this data fiasco because it's all old news.

[Guest]

[phil]

Chucking other projects into formal or informal 'review' like this is clearly an attempt to avoid cross-contamination of other data-sharing initiatives. I'm sure that the government's intention is to let public interest die down and carry on regardless, or with minor cosmetic changes.

However, there are a couple of things:

1) These reviews will have to be published at some point. In full. And if any of the documents generated by each review are suppressed for any reason, then we'll have another "so what aren't they telling us?" story at the very least. OGC Gateway Reviews anyone?

2) They still haven't found the CDs - not that finding them at this point would provide any reassurance that the data hasn't been copied - and 7.5 million families have had a sharp wake-up call. Not all of them will have been aroused from their slumber, but many will.

People are going to want to know what happened about this, and at every report (interim or final) there'll be a chance to remind the public of what happened. Maybe not on mainstream TV, maybe not even that extensively in the national media - though I'm pretty sure there'll be some coverage - but what about your local paper? Or local radio & TV?

If you, like me, are a parent whose details are on one of the discs, you now have a good reason to contact your local papers pretty much any time anything on this whole saga emerges.

Write letters.

Call journalists with your 'local parent and government data scandal' human interest story.

If you haven't already done so, join your local NO2ID group or start one - maybe even publicise and hold an open meeting on 'the database state' for concerned parents?

Government reviews will achieve nothing. Waiting around for them to do so would be worse than useless. Act NOW, and at every subsequent opportunity - we're unlikely to get many gifts like this.

There is absolutely no way that the government can 'manage' a local media grassroots upsurge, especially from righteously aggrieved parents - it's doing all it can to hold ground in the national media and Parliament at present. Ministers and officials are being deployed left right and centre (mainly below the radar, so keep your eye on the 'trade' press) to try to re-pimp data-sharing to professional bodies and industry groups and ooze oil onto troubled waters wherever they can.

ContactPoint will affect every child and family in the land. It is unjustified, disproportionate and dangerous. At the very least you should be writing to your MP and papers to demand that there be an absolute right for anyone to opt (their child) out of it, if they so wish. You may also wish to suggest that the tightly-focussed 'at risk' register of children most vulnerable to abuse, etc. should continue/be reinstated so that child protection professionals have an appropriate, proportionate mechanism for dealing with kids in crisis situations.

As said elsewhere on the forums, think outwards. Act now. Make the biggest bloody fuss you can (without going over the top, of course). If all you achieve at this point is to get yourself known by local journalists as someone who is willing and able to comment on ID and data-sharing issues, then you'll have achieved a lot.
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Phil Booth
national.coordinator@no2id.net

[Baron von Lotsov.]