The Government has announced that the first steps to activate its online directory of children’s services, ContactPoint, have been taken. Whilst the database has been set up with the best of intentions lawyers in the human rights department at law firm Leigh Day & Co are not alone in expressing serious doubts about the efficacy and safety of the system.
ContactPoint has been developed in response to a recommendation of the Laming Enquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié. The system is meant to provide a quick way for professionals in the health, education, social care and youth offending services to find out who else is working with the same child or young person.
However, serious concerns about the safety and use of this data have been raised. Who will have access to the database? How will the information be used? How secure is the information? Unfortunately no vulnerable child can be saved from abuse by a computer and it is likely that the most vulnerable children, such as those trafficked into the sex industry, will never have their details captured and put on the database.
It has emerged that the database will also be used by the police to hunt for evidence of crime, even where none has been committed. Further worries surround the inconsistent approach across authorities towards parental requests to ‘shield’ information, for example by celebrities, have also been expressed. Other guidelines relating to the use of the data on the system are also inconsistent.
Alison Millar, partner in the human rights department at Leigh Day & Co, says of ContactPoint:
This Government has a terrible reputation when it comes to the protection of personal data and the creation of a database that will contain the names, ages and addresses of all 11 million under 18s together with information on their parents, GPs and schools seems risky in the extreme. As representatives of many vulnerable and damaged children and young people we are concerned that ContactPoint will not be fit for purpose and we disagree with the view that holding lots of information about individuals automatically leads to their protection.
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