Here's Blogdial's take on Contactpoint, aka: The Information Sharing Index/Children's Database:
"Parents have the absolute right to care for their children in the way that they see fit. By saying that the parent does not have the right to opt their children out, the state is taking on the role of the parent in saying what is and is not of benefit to the child which is totally unacceptable to any decent person. They are making the children of the UK into property."
The rest of the piece is well worth a read for other eminently sensible views on the matter.
And now with the database coming to a place near you in the very near future, could it finally be the moment to be digging in our heels? Perhaps we should all be asking to see the details contained within the database? Checking and quite probably asking for all the errors in it to be corrected, well this might at last give the lie to all those claims that a database will make information-sharing and detection of children at risk so much easier.
2 comments:
so who do we ask? and what do we ask? I agree with blogdial..they are taking my parental rights from me and I want them back. Why should random people have info about my children when I feel it endagers them? Parents can't just stand by letting all sorts of idiots getting hold of details about their children..what can we do?
Of course, there is the current consultation on ContactPoint here: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/conDetails.cfm?consultationId=1482
but, I dunno, I feel this is such a fait accompli, and would anyway be better answered by techies who would be able to tell us if the database has a raindrop's hope in hxxx of remaining secure...so I personally feel, on further discussion with other HEors, that am actually not going to shop myself to LA, and am going to let them come to me, since even if we all do manage a mass registration, we will simply be handing our information to them on a plate, which actually won't take them so long to key in and then we will still be open to interference from the authorities.
I think that once the database is up and running, and we are definitely on it, I will simply be asking the children's services if I can have sight of the details...and this on a fairly regular basis!
When working in GP practices, even with the best will in the world, their patient lists were so hopelessly out of date all the time that I have no illusions as to the likelihood of accuracy in this system. I suspect the database will be riddled with error, and fairly useless as a result.
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