Contact point - What is it?

[Freddy1929]

I have read in several papers over the last months about a new Govenment data base of children's details (I think this is came out of the Victoria Clumbie enquiry) called Contact point. Can we trust this Government with data? especially children's.... What are they going to keep on it? How is the information going to be collected? Who will have access?

I'm sure some of you out there have an opinion.............................

[????]

The onlt data they had om my kids, they lost...so "Can you trust government with your data?", in my experince NO

[????]

I would also add...

....my pension

....my security

....my kids education

....my country's economy

....my civil liberties

...to the list of things I wish I didn't have to trust this governemnt with

[SteveT]

SOMETHING TO PONDER OVER

Common knowledge?

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics:

29 have been accused of spouse abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

9 have been accused of writing bad cheques

17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71 cannot get a credit card

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shop-lifting

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

Which organisation is this?

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline.

What a bunch of to**er's we have running our country - it says it all. And just to top all that they probably have the best 'corporate' pension scheme in the country .

If you agree that this is an appalling state of affairs, please pass it on to everyone you know. It's time to stand up to this lot.

Some thing that dropped in to my email box the other day.

[RosieH]

SteveT, I'm not disagreeing, merely wondering, how do you propose we stand up to them?

[LegalEagle-ish]

Get revolting!

[pk]

SteveT Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Some thing that dropped in to my email box the

> other day.

do you believe everything that drops into your inbox? the stats don't given get the number of members right, so i wouldn't put too much faith in these 'facts'

[louisiana]

Freddy1929 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I have read in several papers over the last months

> about a new Govenment data base of children's

> details (I think this is came out of the Victoria

> Clumbie enquiry) called Contact point. Can we

> trust this Government with data? especially

> children's.... What are they going to keep on it?

> How is the information going to be collected? Who

> will have access?

> I'm sure some of you out there have an

> opinion.............................

It's a matter of fact, not opinion.

From the ARCH website:

The Children Act 2004 empowered the Secretary of State for Education to create a database (or databases) of everyone in England who is aged under 18. In July 2007, the regulations that will bring this first national database of children into being were passed by Parliament.

The government has announced that the database will be called ContactPoint. It was originally known as the Information-Sharing Index, but re-branded in February 2007 because of negative publicity about information sharing.

ContactPoint is effectively a file-front that serves the whole range of agencies that may be involved with a child. It is intended to provide a complete directory of all children from birth, together with a list of the agencies with which s/he is in contact. It won?t hold any case records, but will enable practitioners to indicate their involvement with a family and contact each other in order to share information. It will also show whether an eCAF (an in-depth personal profile under the Common Assessment Framework) has been carried out and is available for sharing.

The regulations can be seen on the Office of Public Sector Information website {hyperlink: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/20072182.htm ]

Schedule 1 specifies the data that will be collected on each child

Schedule 2 lists the children?s charities that can grant access

Schedule 3 lists the categories of people who are allowed access

All children will be included in the database, but the records of some children will be ?shielded? if it is thought necessary.

Information that a ?sensitive? service ? sexual health, substance misuse and mental health ? is being provided will only be included on ContactPoint with consent.

The government estimates that ContactPoint will cost ?224m to establish and ?41m per year to run. The contract has been awarded to CapGemini, and it is expected that ContactPoint will be operational at some point from early 2009.

http://www.arch-ed.org/issues/databases/contactpoint.htm

(Note that 'shielded' children will be those of politicans, the rich and famous.)

See also 3 videoas on YouTube:

etc.

If you are concerned about this issue, or the wider 'data on children' issues

http://www.arch-ed.org/issues/databases/childrens_databases.htm

please consider supporting the work of Action on Rights for Children.

[Moos]

Will the data be deleted when each child reaches 18?

(who am I kidding)