Unlimited Jargon

What could be worse than ID cards? The Children's index!

Ladies and gentlemen browsing the internet, the Children's Index is a new database being created for one purpose: To track every single British human being from the day they are born or earlier.

It will basically function like an Identity database, only this database will make it disastrous for any child to make a mistake - ever.

The background:

A young girl called Victoria Climbié died in 2000 after abuse and it is believed this death could have been prevented if the government departments had actually shared information and been more diligent. Of course it would be stupid to mention that one of the reasons the civil servants didn't flag up the issue was because they didn't want to be labelled racist.

The proposal:

The Children's Index aims to collate all data collected about children into one central database. This includes NHS records, school reports, incidents with the police, involvement with nurseries/nannies and 40 other bits of information that will be available to approximately 200000 civil servants.

However the database is also going to be used to detect potential future criminals before they are born by looking at the criminal history of a particular family.

The risks:

Ok, at this point you may be thinking something like "Yikes! That's bad, but if it helps protect children..."

Yet this database will expose children to more risks than before:

First of all the 200000 civil servants how many are going to abuse the system? How many will sell the information to paedophiles? How many are paedophiles?

Secondly what happens if you are born into a family with a criminal background? You are then condemned for life.

Third what if the criteria changes from criminal activity to terrorist potential or political activist or anybody who disagrees with the party.

Fourth what if you are arrested by the police (which can now be for anything at all e.g. hanging around an area, or being in a gang, or even looking at a policeman funny). In addition to them taking a DNA sample and placing you on a police database you'd also be marked on the Children's Index as having contact with the police.

Fifth what if civil servants add 2 and 2 and get 5? The powers of the parent will be significantly weakened, whilst the powers of the state will be considerably increased.

Sixth how long will the database information be held and used for and will it be combined with adult databases or even form the future adult database?

Seventh the Children's Index will not contain details on the children of any wealthy families such as politicians and celebrities (so much for socialism) and this is presumably because the database will be prone to weakness from the outset.

Eighth it breaches international human rights laws.

Concerned?

Your not alone! A report will shortly arrive outlining the serious issues this database will cause. When this arrives the issues should be better publicised.

Until that time I recommend reading:
NO2ID
DareToKnow
DatabaseMasterClass and
Archrights

and the following news articles for more information:

Celebrity children will get database privacy
Children's Index will only devalue parents
Channel 4 video: UK children's database unlawful
Database shields celebrity children

Labels: Human Rights, My philosophy, Politics, Privacy

posted by Caesar on Sunday, September 03, 2006