May 22, 2009

Database of School children launched

The government plans to produce a database of every child of school age has become a reality, for the first time professionals throughout the UK will be able to gain access to the database, which is supposed to prevent many of the awful child abuses cases that have come to the attention of the media recently.

The database is not without any controversy either, as with many of the government IT projects there are issues regarding who gets access to the database and for what reasons.

ContactPoint was created in response to the report by Lord Laming; it followed the death of Victoria Climbie.

So far the project has cost around £225 million, has been already been delayed a couple of time due to concerns over security. With almost 400,000 having access to the database there are still concerns as what the information will be used for.

Source [BBC]