Sarah Womack
London
Telegraph
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Parents will be devalued and family privacy shattered by the
mass surveillance of all 12 million children in England and Wales,
says a report today commissioned by Parliament's Information Commissioner.
In what is likely to be a major embarrassment to Tony Blair,
it says proposals for a £224 million database containing
details of every child will waste millions of pounds, undermine
parental authority and actually put children in more danger.
The report comes amid Government fanfare about "supporting"
parents with parenting classes backed by a "super nanny"
army of child psychologists. Mr Blair defended the super nanny
idea saying it was right to give families a "helping hand".
"No one's talking about interfering with normal family life,"
he added.
But experts in child protection, law and computers, who have
written today's report, express astonishment that a Government
which emphasises the importance of good parenting also plans to
devalue the status of the mother and father with a Big Brother
surveillance system which violates the law and is not secure.
Such a system may also hold inaccurate information, tarnishing
families or children unfairly. "Families' privacy and autonomy
is being shattered as the Government puts them all under surveillance,"
they say. "Government policy proposes treating all parents
as if they cannot be trusted to bring up their children."
Doctors, schools and the police will have to alert the database
to a wide range of "concerns". Two warning flags on
a child's record could trigger an investigation.
One of the report's authors, Dr Eileen Munro, of the London School
of Economics, said: "The Government is extending the surveillance
needed for child protection concerns to all concerns about a child's
health and development. It reduces parental authority and risks
damaging their willingness to seek or accept help."
The database - officially called the Children's Index - follows
the horrific death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2000.
She was tortured and starved by her aunt and her aunt's partner
both of whom were later jailed for life.
It is hoped that the index, which is due to be operational within
two years, will sound an early warning in such cases by recording
health and other developmental information about all children.
The index - or those computer systems linked to it - will carry
details of everything from vaccinations to whether a child is
eating enough fruit and vegetables, or is struggling in the classroom.
But today's report says the compulsory collation of such a plethora
of information violates British and EU data protection and human
rights law.
The IT systems are also not secure, and 400,000 civil and public
servants will have access to the information, so ministers cannot
not possibly claim the gigantic database will be totally confidential,
it adds.
Experts point out that collecting such a vast amount of information
will make it harder to spot those in genuine danger. "When
you are looking for a needle in a haystack, is it necessary to
keep building bigger haystacks?" asked one. "The new
IT based strategy will divert resources and attention away from
these children, potentially posing more dangers."
The report adds: "The main focus is on spotting the babies
and children who may become a 'menace' or a cost to society in
later life by, for example, having babies in their teens, under-achieving
at school, or being delinquent.
"(But) this raises the issue that labelling can become a
self-fulfilling prophecy as all adults treat the child with suspicion.
If this 'screening' of children did happen, would there be a place
for parental responsibility?"
The Department for Education has defended the index. It said:
"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."
A spokesman for Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner,
said the views expressed in the report were not necessarily his
own.
