Action on Rights for Children have provided a terrific summary of the Masterclass in children's databases in the UK they have been posting on the Web over the past three weeks.
Essential reading for anyone interested in issues like ID cards or the surveillance state.
"There is a range of databases holding information about children and young people, and a corresponding range of legislation that allows this information to be shared between education, social care, health, youth justice and law enforcement agencies
Many systems are concerned with a ‘predictive’ agenda – identifying children from an early age whom agencies believe may commit criminal offences in the future...
This predictive agenda has now been extended to identify children who have what are described as ‘low-level’ welfare problems...
A new in-depth personal assessment tool (the Common Assessment Framework) that captures information about the child, and the competence of his/her parents, has been designed to be used by any agency if a practitioner believes the child needs more services than that particular agency can provide...
Social Services are moving over to an electronic record system (ESCR) to be developed along the lines of the NHS information system, and planned links between the two are under discussion.
A central index of all children from birth is currently being established to hold each child’s basic details, plus contact information for each practitioner working with the child... Consideration is being given to linking this Children’s Index to the National Identity Register in order to create a single national population register.
Although the Children’s Index was initially promoted as a child protection measure in the wake of the Laming Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie... It is envisaged that everyone - child or adult - will eventually have a central file that acts as a ‘hub’ for government services.
The green paper ‘Every Child Matters’ changed the definition of the phrase ‘at risk’. Until now, when applied to a child, this has been taken to mean at risk of 'significant harm' from abuse or neglect. It now means at risk of social exclusion, of missing out on services or education, or of committing crime...
The legislation that establishes the Children’s Index allows information to be collected and shared without the knowledge or consent of child and parents...
There is considerable confusion around the issue of consent to the sharing of information between agencies...
it will be up to each area ‘Local Safeguarding Children Board’ to develop its own information-sharing agreement.
At the moment, pilots are being conducted in order to decide what data should be put on the Children’s Index."
Many thanks to the folks at ARCH who have gone to considerable trouble recently to outline the situation with these databases in an accessible way. Hopefully their efforts will be widely read and understood.
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