Dutch to Open Electronic Files on Children

Del writes "The Dutch government plans to open an electronic file on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future. All citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database - including health, education, family and police records."

Comments

What's going on

[jeroenb]

What is really going on is that the already existing files of different agencies are being coupled in an attempt to keep children in difficult situations from falling off the radar when for instance they move to a different city. Child protection services often didn't know about children moving into the city with problems in their past - in the old database the record would be closed and they wouldn't turn up in the new one until something actually happened (which is usually too late).

So I hope this is not interpreted as a terrible invasion of privacy - all the information is already collected by local governments. The only change is that moving from one local government's area to another doesn't mean those services lose all information.

Re:gestapo wtf

[igb]

You would expect the Dutch to be slightly more attuned to this. The roundups in 1942 were massively aided by the Dutch census of 1937, which included religious affiliation. And massive collaboration by the police and civil service, of course, but few European countries reacted to roundups of Jews with anything other than enthusiasm. It's instructive to note how few Dutch Jews survived the war with how many Danish Jews did. In Denmark, there wasn't a population register with religion on it, and the civil service behaved impeccably.

ian