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You are here: News > News > Controversial ContactPoint Goes Live Amidst Security Fears
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| » 17 May 2009 |
| Controversial ContactPoint Goes Live Amidst Security Fears |
| The United Kingdom's government has declared plans to go through with launching their infamous child protection database even though there are continuing worries about how secure it actually is. Security experts are still concerned that the information on the database might spill out despite ministerial guarantees on meeting all the security requirements protecting the roll-out of the directory system. Health officials, schools, police, and social workers will have exclusive access to the information held on the ContactPoint database from Monday onwards. Ed Balls announced in the House of Commons last week that the start of frontline trials will follow the repeated delays in the launching of the system. The long-delayed ContactPoint system, which contains all the names and addresses of children below the age of consent in England, will be accessed by frontline care workers in real-life testing for the first time after this Monday. Concurrently, as part of ContactPoint's extensive protection arrangements, the police have hidden the information of children who may be in greater danger if their location were to become known in order to provide the system an extra level of security. For instance, if a child is escaping from child abuse and is under witness protection, their records would be shielded. ContactPoint has fortified security on an estimated 52,000 records. Development of the expensive, multi-million pound data warehouse that holds the information of approximately 11 million children in England in the form of an Internet directory was proposed after the murder of Victoria Climbié care of her abusive guardians about nine years ago. Health agencies, social services, and the police all observed signs of abuse in the run-up to her demise, but each agency acted separately at the time. Important progress on the project has been achieved since January of this year. Seventeen local law enforcement authorities in the northwest of England and leading national charities Barnardo's and KIDS have become early adopters of the system. They're currently training their management teams to prepare use of the database. The other details contained within the database aside from name and address are gender, date of birth, and contact details for parents or guardians of each child in England. Aside from the £224 million of upfront cost, ContactPoint will also have an annual running cost of around £44 million. |
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