What is going on in the UK?

[Guest guest]

I just saw this today. I hope you guys are fighting it tooth and

nail. The article doesn't mention vaccines but I will bet good money

that it will be a big part of this database.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?

in_article_id=392629 & in_page_id=1770

Big Brother database to record the lives of all children

By JANE MERRICK, Daily Mail

18:52pm 26th June 2006

The home life of every child in the country is to be recorded on a

national database in the ultimate intrusion of the nanny state, it

has emerged.

Computer records holding details of school performance, diet and

even whether their parents provide a 'positive role model' for 12

million children will be held by the Government.

Police, social workers, teachers and doctors will have access to the

database and have powers to flag up 'concerns' where children are

not meeting criteria laid down by the state.

The 'children's index', which will cost the taxpayer £224 million,

will even monitor whether youngsters are eating five portions of

fruit and vegetables a day, whether they go to church or are

struggling to get good marks at school.

One assessment records whether a pre-school child is in day care -

suggesting that those who are looked after by their mothers at home

are not conforming to the state ideal.

Critics said the plan would sideline on an unprecedented scale the

rights of parents to bring up their children in the way they see fit

and amount to a 'bar-coding' of youngsters.

They questioned how the Government knew better than parents on the

correct way to bring up a child, and warned that it would deter

decent families from seeking help for fear of being branded at risk.

It could take just two warning flags on a child's file to trigger an

investigation.

The Government handed itself sweeping powers in the 2004 Children

Act to record basic information of all children in England and

Wales, based on information from the register of births and child

benefit.

The Act followed the death of eight-year-old Climbie -

whose neglect by her aunt and her boyfriend was missed by social

workers.

Section 12 of the act limits information to name, address, date of

birth, gender, a unique id, contact details of parent or carer,

school, GP practice and other practioners dealing with the child.

But the Government wants to extend the records to include detailed

assessments of a child's life.

Ministers insist it will act as an early warning system to highlight

children at risk.

The database has already been piloted in 12 local authorities and

the Government plans to make it nationwide from next year.

It will try to introduce a regulation in Parliament in the autumn -

allowing it to become law with barely any scrutiny by MPs.

Civil liberties and children's campaigners are to hold a conference

at the London School of Economics on Tuesday to highlight their

concerns.

Terri Dowty, director of children's rights group Arch, said: 'Who is

bringing children up? Are parents effectively nannies for the

state's children or are children born to families and the state just

helps families when they ask for it?'

Dr Eileen Munro, an expert in child protection at the LSE,

said: 'The authority of parents is being eroded because the

children's services, health education and social care are being

asked to intervene.

'On the whole parents are the greatest source of safety and welfare

that any child has.'

Bamford, the Assistant Information Commissioner which

polices access to information, said there was no justification for

keeping check on 12 million children when only a small proportion

were at risk.

He said: 'When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, is it

necessary to keep building bigger haystacks?

'The cause for concern indicator against a child's record is

expressed in very broad language. For example, it could be cause for

concern that a child is not progressing well towards his or her

French GCSE.'

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: 'We are heading

towards a situation in which an entire generation of kids won't know

what privacy is, as though we are preparing them for prison rather

than life in a free society. It is time to ask ourselves why we

sacrifice the privacy of our children first.'

Shadow Education Secretary Willetts said: 'We are going to

have bar-coded babies. This project is going to cost £224m over the

three years to 2008 with subsequent operating costs of £41m a year.

Would it not be better to focus this money on families in real

need?'

A Department for Education spokesman said: 'We need to ensure that

professionals work across service boundaries for the benefit of

children. 'Our proposals balance the need to do everything we can to

improve children's life chances whilst ensuring strong safeguards to

make sure that information stored is minimal, secure and used

appropriately.

'Parents and young people will be able to ask to see their data and

make amendments and will retain full rights under the Data

Protection Act.'

[Guest guest]

>I just saw this today. I hope you guys are fighting it tooth and

>nail. The article doesn't mention vaccines but I will bet good money

>that it will be a big part of this database.

Oh, we have been fighting this since the White Paper 'Every Child Matters'

came out a few years ago!

I am a member of ARCH which is mentioned.

The Children Act has been passed, but the section of the sharing of

information hasn't been ratified yet. But as it says in the article there are

trial

areas where it is being done legitimately without the ratification, and some

other areas are using the ECM paper as justification for acting ultra vires.

And yes, it has been suggested that vaccination status be a cause for

concern, and therefore a flag, along with home education, the involvement of

health

professions (leading to every child with SEN being flagged), flags for

parents with depression, flags for moving house often (which will be most Armed

Forces personal), flags for non-attendance in school due to illness, and so on.

It has been suggested that because one of the things that they government

wants to do is monitor the amount of fruit and veg children are eating, that we

come up with a way of monitoring that. The best suggestion was to send

stool samples in the post to government officials!

It seems that after the horse has bolted, the press are starting to try to

close the door. The problem is that the act was passed, so there isn't much

we can do about it, expect hope that the UK governments ability to maintain a

data base (which is appaling) will lead to failure, and wait for the

ratification so that a judicial review can be launched.

But on a serious note, there is a worry that the database will become so

huge with a large number of children with flags for no good reason, that the

children really in need of help will be missed.

Cheers,

S.