Reading, 30 October 2009:
Conservatives in Reading today expressed concerns regarding the
Government’s proposed database of
children, ContactPoint. The system,
costing £224m, has been delayed twice
amid data security fears. It will hold
the details of 11 million children and
young people aged up to 18 years, and
will be accessible by over 300,000
authorised users.
Councillor Mark Ralph, Conservative Lead
Spokesman for Education and Chairman of
Reading Borough Council’s Education and
Children’s Services Scrutiny Panel,
said, "While I share every responsible
adult’s wish to avoid situations in
which children are let down by the
inability of Children’s Services
Departments to share information, the
Government’s dismal track record in
managing such information leads me to
question this.”
Conservatives point to the long history
of lost and mismanaged data under
Labour: lost laptops, memory sticks and
computer disks with personal records of
25m individuals (HMRC, 2007), 18,000
personal records (DWP, 2007), 3m
personal records (DVLA, 2007), 600,000
Armed Forces recruits (MOD, 2008),
100,000 farmers' bank/personal details
(Rural Payments Agency, 2009).
On enquiry, Cllr Ralph was advised that
there is no opportunity for Reading or
any parent to opt out of this database.
He said, “I accept that vulnerable
individuals must be protected but this
is another infringement of people’s
rights to privacy on a massive scale and
it makes me extremely uneasy."
He continued, "It is also the case that
if the information is to be accessible,
it must be in a standardised format.
What is to stop a future government
integrating the ContactPoint database
with other departmental databases such
as the NHS (Spine), DVLA, Police (CRB,
DNA), DWP and HMRC? The loss of records
of this complexity could be an absolute
disaster.”
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