Liverpool City council & Contactpoint in Private Eye

[s836apg]

Bad news for the government's ContactPoint database, which holds sensitive information on every child in the country, supposedly to protect them from harm.
Liverpool, one of 17 local authorities which are meant to be piloting the scheme, is to challenge the system it says is an "expensive and unnecessary intrusion into our children's lives which will not make them any safer". Other local authorities are expected to follow Liverpool's example.
ContactPoint was the government's response to criticism following the murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie. It is supposed to make it easier for child welfare agencies to share concerns and information. But as the ~ve has detailed repeatedly, it is wide open to abuse or human error which could actually put children at more risk.
The government has allowed for the "shielding" of some information; but to judge by the experience of one of the country's best selling authors, that exercise is itself a security disaster.
The author, whom we are not naming in order to preserve the anonymity of his children, writes books that attract a small sub-section of persistent dubious conspiracy theorists; and he was advised to apply to his local authority for "shielding".
He duly sent off his passport, driving licence and children's fidi details, including their birth certificates, in a registered envelope with guaranteed next day delivery. But the following week, the local authority database unit emailed him to ask if be had posted the documents. Concerned that they had not arrived, he made his own inquiries and found there had been no one to receive the recorded package at the council's PO Box address.
The postmaii had left a calling card and taken the package back to the Post Office. And there it remained until a council employee went to pick it up. Later, the author's passport and children's birth certificates were posted back to him in a standard first class envelope - hardly great data protection.
A week later he received a letter saying there was no evidence of "significant risk" to his children and his request for shielding was rejected. He is demanding a review and trying to find out how to appeal the decision.
"It is pointless to argue that with so many civil servants with access, there won't be some with questionable tendencies - and more who will be open to bribery and corruption by selling data from ContaciPoint," he said. "How many police officers and civilian police staff are prosecuted each year for selling information from police computers and records? This stupid exercise will mean all the kids in the UK will be at increased risk."