Slashdot Mirror
Database of All UK Children Launched
An anonymous reader writes "'A controversial database which holds the details of every child in England has now become available for childcare professionals to access. The government says it will enable more co-ordinated services for children and ensure none slips through the net. 390,000 people will have access to the database, but will have gone through stringent security training.'"
Knowing our government, child professionals, council binmen, accounts clerks, councillors, dog catchers and that nasty lady on the front desk who's job is purely to be unhelpful.
Semper en excreta sumus solum profundum
Jackpot!
(just a matter of when)
Seriously do they really expect this information to remain secret?
...Big Brother strikes again...
The article doesn't seem to make any mention of removing that information when they become adults. I can see where this is going... get a database of them now, when less people are likely to complain, and then you still have the info when they are adults. Instant (well sorta) database of all your citizens.
if ever their was a reasonable cause to scream think of the children, this is it. and lets not forget that these kids will grow into adults, do we really believe the government will let go of that information once it has it?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
390,000 people will have access to the database, but will have gone through stringent security training.
That's great, but having people know security through (unspecified) 'stringent training' is no guarantee it will be carried out effectively.
Oh, and at a nearly a quarter of a billion pounds, forgive my curiosity about precisely what value this is expected provide.
Sounds like a rabid white elephant with dangerously sharp tusks.
I bet Bruce Schneier will post on how bad an idea this is any hour now. Some classic Schneier: "Why Technology Won't Prevent Identity Theft" http://www.schneier.com/essay-255.html ...and what about the old-fashioned Law of Large Numbers? If you give 390,000 people access to something, the chance that some of them are criminals is: 100%! (Rounded to the nearest six decimals or so.) Simply because there are 390,000 of them.
Well, at least we know who'll be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.
This idea reeks of a solution that was determined before asking the geeks '... is this a good idea?'
Anyone with any technical chops (whatsoever) would see a database with 400,000 weakest links, at best.
Security training meaning that they know how to break the system in the best way if they want?
http://lpuk.org/
I stumbled across this website last year. It is a very small (at present) political party. As far as I know, the only one who actively states they will scrap this state monitoring nonsense.
Hopefully, some of the other parties will realise that people don't want to be monitored, and there are votes to be had out of it.
Carpe Daemon
I am one of them. But don't worry, I have gone through stringent security training. They will never be able to decrypt my collection of pictures.
Here in Denmark, there is the CPR (central person registry), where EVERY person living in Denmark has a unique 10-digit number, and the state+ subscribing entities (such as tax, medical etc etc) has access to relevant data about you.
Yet, that does not stop children from being abused, disappear etc.
A database is worth little unless you implant a small tracking device in all you wish to track, and monitor constantly.
Melchett: Now, I've compiled a list of those with security clearance, have you got it Darling?
Darling: Yes sir.
Melchett: Read it please.
Darling: It's top security sir, I think that's all the Captain needs to know.
Melchett: Nonsense! Let's hear the list in full!
Darling: Very well sir. "List of personnel cleared for mission Gainsborough, as dictated by General C. H. Melchett: You and me, Darling, obviously. Field Marshal Haig, Field Marshal Haig's wife, all Field Marshal Haig's wife's friends, their families, their families' servants, their families' servants' tennis partners, and some chap I bumped into the mess the other day called Bernard."
Melchett: So, it's maximum security, is that clear?
Blackadder: Quite so sir, only myself and the rest of the English speaking world is to know.
..we find the passwords to this database on a USB drive on a train: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6....
The others where speaking Urdu and the the assignment was "discuss."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-410150/Schoolgirl-arrested-refusing-study-non-English-pupils.html
I'd like to see the database entry for the arrested girl.
The next pasture is always greener
This only afffects England.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own Devolved governing bodies which have been less interested in these massive Databases to date.
England doesn't have such a body. It was offered but there was a lack of interest.
Haha! Isn't UK known for notoriously making backups of their data in the cloud by leaving secret data lying around on trains, loosing unencrypted CDs in transit and alike? I can't wait until the first scandal arises about this database!
shhh, ya great jessie, ye'll gee the gam awa'
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
This is appalling - the "facepalm" tag is spot on. I have a great fondness for the UK, even though I've only visited once, and the people there have my sympathies for such bureaucratic stupidity. Policies like this and ASBO's of the last few years have had a disastrous effect... government is getting way too intrusive over there.
Sadly, I think Australia is heading in the same direction, though at least the Australia Card/Access Card proposals have been shelved by the current mob (for now)
Seriously, doesn't anyone think of the children?! Please?!
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Invalid entry
Syntax error
Test ignore
Null value
And my personal favorite:
rm -rf
You can't link to the daily mail and expect to be taken seriously.
This Database Is Useless Without Pictures.
Given, this is the UK that will be doing this, and they're known for not respecting privacy, someone care to make a list of everything that could possibly go wrong?
I was under the impression that the information to be contained within this database already exists in one form or another and this is the problem that they are trying to solve. Currently this information resides in a hundred different systems and only a small proportion of these systems actually talk and exchange information between them. Such a fragmented system surely can't be good for anyone and by collating it we ensure everyone involved has the entire picture rather than just their service/authorities history of the child.
Don't get me wrong I do think the current plan is flawed and needs review. The security/integrity of the system needs an overhaul before going live, the number of people with access reduced, tighter regulation introduced outlining when the information can be accessed and a clear declaration as to when a child's information is no longer required by the state and deleted.
Announced to the media when the government are being hammered in the news over some other scandal. They do this all the time, the Torries before them did it too. Often they announce shit they KNOW is controversial and have no intention of actually doing just to make the press write about something else and forget the scandal they were writing about. It's the equivalent of waving a new flashy toy at a toddler to distract him so you can grab her blanky to get it washed as she won't knowingly let it go.
As far as the cost is concerned, the government just got an influx of unexpected cash from ministers in the form of repayments, so they can afford to splurge a little on some untendered, no doubt proprietary solution provided by an IT company who spend more on lobbying than their solutions, no doubt running on Windows. They will also keep the details hidden behind a commercial confidentiality NDA excuse too.
Labour do seem hell bent on kicked out at the next election with the added bonus of becoming unelectable, good luck to the bastards.
In roughly 18 years time, these children will be young adults and they'll still have all their information.
Add a few more decades and they'll have complete details over every child and adult simply because the children have grown old.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The view from El Reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/17/contactpoint_follow_up/
Considering the UK Governments perchant for loosing data http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm, I wouldn't be very inclined to volenteer any information whatsoever about my (not so distant) future children.
Until we learn how to properly control sensitive and personal data, It would be prudent to stop, or at least limit, how much we collect it.
The title claims all UK Children, and yet the post claims all children in England. It's incredible how many people are clueless to the difference.
Murphy reincarnates and explodes.
I am the lawn!
Invalid entry
Syntax error
Test ignore
Null value
And my personal favorite:
rm -rf
Do that and I doubt you'd find yourself in a pleasant retirement home in your old age >:->
I did not think britain could get more Orwellian with CCTV and a DNA register of all people arrested in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
This just says I was wrong.
So now Britain is getting ready, making sure the kids (i.e "the devils spawn") are on file.
Are Britian's leaders so scared of its people that they see them as criminals?
What happened to Free speech , Democracy , Innocent till Proven Guilty ?
Perhaps you could provide a link to show that this story is bogus, then your argument may hold more weight.
> Large parts of the UK fought and bled for the right to not be part of England. ...and lost, and then we got your kings ...Queen Elizabeth is more Scottish than she is English (and much more German) ...and you do know that a sassanach is an (Anglo)-Saxon (as opposed to Celt/Pict).... which properly describes 2/3 of the Scottish population
No, seriously, why?
Are children like some sort of disease that need to be tracked? Of what use is it to these "childcare professionals" to know the name of every child in the UK?
Over time this is going to be a 1:1 census.
What are the benefits of this that outweigh the severe risk of having all of that data in one place? It seems like once a week there's an article on here about some huge privacy violation that the UK is already finished with. And this...I don't know anymore. It's just absurd at this point.
Large parts of the UK fought and bled for the right to not be part of England.
Hey, we bought you fair and square. You're ours now. That's how capitalism works. It wasn't even a hostile acquisition, it was an economic rescue plan.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6047514.stm
Good enough?
Where's the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag when it's needed?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The Revolution is at hand!!!..........Oh wait a sec......you're British. You don't have any.
Nevermind.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Can some one with a clue please fix the headline on this article? UK is not the same as England. English legislation and English databases do not apply to the whole of the UK.
390,000 people will have access to the database, but will have gone through stringent security training.
Let's try being a little optimistic.
Let's say that all 390,000 people take their duties and responsibilities as public servants very seriously. They attend the security training and try to remember everything they're taught.
Fast forward two weeks. They all integrate the security training into their work, and form new habits: "when I open the database, I have to $SECURITY_CONSIDERATION, then click on $SAFE_OPTION and always ask IT if something smells fishy". They form habits.
Fast forward four months. An unexpected situation pops up. They have now forgotten what they learned in security training, relying solely on their new habits which have worked perfectly well so far. They try their best to judge the security implications of their choices in an unknown situation, but they're not computer techies, so they get the answer wrong.
As a result, security is breached.
Anyone wants to defend a more optimistic prediction?
Not directly, but I work daily with the ContactPoint project and a number of others that coincide with it.
First: there is no opt-in or opt-out. The database is populated from a number of existing databases at a Local Authority level, and in most cases the primary source is the central Education database, which is in turn populated by schools' information systems and such. All schools, private schooling parents and similar, have a legal duty to submit this information annually in the Schools Census. It's not 100% accurate or up-to-date, but it's as comprehensive a framework as you'll find. "Refusing" or giving "bogus details" would be both very difficult and illegal.
Second: I hate the database, its supporting systems and the gung-ho approach the DCSF (central govt dept) have employed in its implementation. It is causing more work, problems and morale-breaking long-term consequences than most of the people on this site could conceive, to front-line workers and back-office support staff alike, and I would love nothing more than to see this project and many like it (see "Integrated Children's System") abandoned in favour of implementing some of the more relevant and critical recommendations of the Lord Laming report, which is what triggered the whole debacle, but I don't expect that to happen.
I have suspected for a long time that this was a back-door approach to a national person database, which is why I don't believe the govt will let go in spite of its inevitable breach of the Data Protection Act once the children reach the age of majority.
My biggest criticism of the entire suite of projects is that it completely fails to address - and in fact may exacerbate - the central problem with the Victoria Climbie case that it is supposed to solve. Specifically, she was recorded multiple times on multiple databases due to poorly trained users. Even then, there were several contacts with the child that should have led directly to intervention or at least in-depth investigation, with or without additional case background, but the workers involved failed to act.
Fundamentally, the DCSF does not seem willing or able to accept a simple truth, fundamentally understood by all IT professionals and most of the people on this site: You cannot introduce software to prevent people from making mistakes. At best you can only change the type of mistake they make.
Most social workers are actually insulted by the systems being introduced, because they increase the administrative workload (in spite of DCSF claims to the contrary) while removing the responsibility and flexibility for workers to make qualitative assessments and trained, experienced decisions.
Even if central government are to be taken at their word, this system is a poor implementation of a poor solution to a serious problem, and will hinder as much as it helps. If not, this is - as you suggest - an insidious approach to a wider Big Brother agenda.
Meta will eat itself
I just couldn't help linking this thread with the Neanderthal one, care of Jonathan Swift!
Just thinking of the children [rubs stomach]....
From the estimates I could find, the adult population of England is about 38 million.
This means more than 1% of the population has access to this database? Is that really necessary?
You did that yourself. If it's outrageous and in the Daily Mail then it's pretty close to case proven that it's bogus. Especially since it's all gone very quiet since 2006. Either the school is still investigating or the newspapers decided that there was no story in the outcome of the investigation. Do you really expect people to provide links to reports that nothing happened?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
We need a database of MP's expenses
now that would be something...
As far as I can tell no one has picked this up but the article title claims a database of "All UK Children" has been launched yet in the main text it says that it is only for England. What about the rest of the UK? Which part is the mistake?
I see a lot more people name their kids";drop table;" now.
England, My friends,
it appears you are like the frog being slowly boiled in his own pond water.
I don't say this lightly,
You Need a REVOLUTION.
Well it's Scotlands way of getting back at England for Thatchers lot dumping the poll-tax on us in the '80's...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
ContactPoint
CP
Really?
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
There is only one good thing about this database: it's another cost for the Government to bare and it will require more staff to maintain it. As a UK tax payer you might think I'm mad for saying that but hear me out.
We have a rot in our country that is causing the state to grow almost totally unchecked. The people are broadly split into two camps: those working every hour FSM sends and those sponging of the state. The workers don't have time to try to change the system the spongers don't want to. The only way it's going to get better is for it to collapse under it's own weight and get rebuilt hopefully better (but probably with the same flaws).
Perhaps it seems a little defeatist of me to say this but think about it for a moment. When was the last time the people paying the tax really got a say in anything? I don't have the figures but I would bet that the largest group of non-voters are working people. Not only are they becoming a minority (government workers don't count) they are suffering exclusion problems too.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Bear in mind folks that this is the same government who admit to an 86% infection rate *each year* among the 5,000 odd computers used at Westminster:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/15/mp_malware_leak_risk/
Yes, that's 4,300 infected machines a year, with 400 hit badly enough that they get cleaned manually (and I hope to god manual intervention means wipe and start again, but I doubt it somehow).
So, that's a nigh on certainty that the login details for the database are already well known to 3rd parties then...
I think the problem is that the English MPs, comprising the majority of the Westminster Parliament, have resisted strongly the idea of diluting their power, particularly the Northern English Labour MPs.
The idea would have been to have regional bodies and a separate one for London. Westminster would start to evolve to a true Federal Parliament
By resisting that you have the West Lothian Question of that Arch-Unionist and Bibliophile Tam Dalyell (can't even spell Dalziel), never mind that the reverse situation never bothered him.
So if English MPs don't want it then ENglish MPs need to get together and resist it. As Englishmen, rather than on Party lines
UK != England, change the title morons!
So the reason they are doing this is so 400K "trained" people can save time when looking up every kid in England. Yet, 51K kids have to be shielded from this "secure" database because their parents work for the government that's sending it's citizens kids to the slaughter.
Nice plan. Let's see the statistics on pedophiles. The most conservative estimate is 1% of the population. So, we're going to have 4,000 screened pedophiles in child care jobs with access to every molesters dream come true.
Yea, so if I were in England, I'd want to be in that 51K slot or not at all.
This is fallout from the Baby P incident. One tragic case of failure in social services got hammered by the media for weeks, complete with pictures of cute-now-dead toddler, and the newspapers got into full on campaign mode. The government has no choice but to respond. Our IT policy is being dictated by the emotional reaction people have to a small child being beaten to death. Rationality has truly gone out the window.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You may claim flamebait, but it's quite correct. The title is wrong, it isn't for all UK children, just those in England.
I have a great fondness for the UK too, having been born here and spent 37 out of 38 years living here. However this is just another thing in a long line that is making me want to move elsewhere. My question is where else can I go? What are the policies like in other countries? Are there good websites that will give a trustworthy overview of how 'big brother'-ish each country is? If anyone has any good suggestions I'd be interested to hear about them, and why. Is the UK with it's massive amount of CCTV coverage and state-controlled databases unique, or are other nations in reality only slightly behind in this unfortunate process?
Here's a nice recent overseas article mentioning the incident: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25361297-7583,00.html
England is not synonymous with the U.K
The Daily Mail article is a recounting of facts, with very limited conjecture. You cannot dismiss anything in the Daily Mail without reference to its contents and not be branded a fucktard.
Here we go:
1. Lose current job in failing economy brought on by government.
2. Get new job in government office collating new database.
3. Government loses international credit rating due to lack of production and overspending (see 1&2).
4. Government cannot afford to pay to maintain 1.5B GBP database. Lose new government job.
5. Take flash drive into work on last day. Download information that cost 1.5B GBP to collect.
6. Sell to criminals for 0.001% on the pound. (Filled in the the blank for you)
7. Profit.
Why don't robbers break into Fort Knox? Because it's much easier to hijack the armoured car that's on the way.
Your vault is unassailable. I'll just steal your data while it is on one of the 100 machines it is on before it gets to your vault.
That perfect security shields data that started in a rural clinic on a receptionist's laptop. It went over so many channels before it made it to your vault, it probably arrived pre-stolen for your convenience.
Which is it? Get it right you bloody yankee doodle dandies!
Does the expecting mother have to get a concealed child permit?
My child's name is *
Sorry, you should have added a 'Commit;' to your son's name.
You did that yourself. If it's outrageous and in the Daily Mail then it's pretty close to case proven that it's bogus.
Bogus? Hardly. It happened.
Regardless of what news source it is reported in, any event involving a overreaction of colossally stupid magnitude related in any way to political correctness or nanny-statism perpetrated by any public servant in England having authority equal to or exceeding that of a lowly dog catcher, is almost 100% certain to have occurred exactly as described.
There'd be far fewer such events if the political correctness run amuck and nanny-statism took a backseat to common sense. But since people without two brain cells to rub together have precious little common sense, and since having more than one brain cell disqualifies a person from public service in England, I fully expect to see a steady stream of such events occurring on a regular, if not daily, basis.
Fault tolerance must be less than .00000256% for such a system to be safe. That is a completely unrealistic standard.
One person is enough to compromise secrecy, and just because you can know who that is, doesn't mean you can retrieve what was already stolen.
I'm less concerned that governments have a database on me, than that 1) their information might be faulty or 2) someone might change it as a way of exerting control over me or my family. Will people ever be able to get a certified backup of their private records? No? then Governments stay out.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
It's a pity that it has come so far that the only thing I can recommend is for anyone with access to any of these databases to sabotage them.
I'm quite sure that if something like this doesn't happen, they will remain there for a long long time and there will be many more.
Bogus? Hardly. It happened.
But did it happen as described? There was dispute over what she actually said, there was dispute about her being held in a cell, and so on. Whether police involvement was appropriate or not depends on what actually happened, and you won't get that from a source with a business model that pretty much depends on making its readers angry. And everything else I can find links back directly or indirectly to the Daily Mail article; there seems to be no independent source for the story.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Let the parents or guardians decide. If the guardians ARE the state then they can do what they need to do to stay organized... if not then whomever is will make the decision that makes the most sense to them. Additionally whatever the result it, the records should be sealed automatically on their age of majority birthday... and a new 'adult' record opened when/if they become a person of interest.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
In Germany is a organisation having medical information of all new borne children. Blood combined with personal data is sent to a lab. If the lab would not store the data, why the need personal data ?
The problem isn't that every child in England is in a database but that in 20+ years every adult in England will be in a database. Talk about forward planning by the government!
What happens when those children grow up ? The dear government has a dossier on everybody. No F*ucking thanks
[..] A complaint was made and she was taken to a police station.
[...] her fingerprints and DNA samples were taken and she was put in a cell.
[...] Greater Manchester Police said it took hate crime reports very seriously and its treatment of the teenager was in line with normal procedure.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/6047514.stm
The next pasture is always greener
ERROR 1046 (3D000): No database selected
Hopefully the authorities will catch pedobear before he learns about USE statements!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
(classified)
until (no_system_resources_remaining){
We must track and control, or the children will grow up and turn against us. We must track and control, or the children will grow up and turn against us ....
(fork child)
We must grow up and control, or the children will track against us. We must grow up and control, or the children will track against us....
(fork child)
We must control the growing up, or the tracking will make children of us. We must control the growing up, or the tracking will make children of us....
(fork child)
Oops!
SEGFAULT
So how would the database be any help at all? The first one writing what's going on in there will either have it right (in which case the database isn't needed) or have it wrong (in which case, the database hasn't helped).
This is far worse then any public surveillance. You have the police shooting people because they are black, so they take it out on kids in grade school.
Fuck if I will ever travel to England.
They can't bring the army in that would KILL them politically.
Armed police?
No way. Not against unarmed civilians.
Especially not after the debacle at the G20.
Going in ARMED? Well, they can bring out the SWANT team or SAS then, can't they.
The armed populace can only work against a modern government when it operates in guerrilla fashion and is willing to assassinate.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/
So, the government is just assuming that NONE of the 390.000 employees will fall victim of a social engineering attack, EVER? I don't think that even fits into the definition of optimism...
Even the Daily Mail version admits that "Greater Manchester Police denied Codie had been kept in a cell". As I say, the facts of the case were disputed at the time, and nobody seems to have seen fit to report the outcome of the school's own investigation. The BBC is far better than the Daily Mail, but it still rather prone to sensationalism.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
A police spokesperson confirmed that they had questioned Codie with regard to a Section Five Racial Public Order offence and that she had been kept in a juvenile unit, not a police cell. "The unit is not particularly threatening, it has picture windows and comfy furniture and she would have been checked on regularly by trained staff. "She was definitely not locked up for over six hours."
http://www.salfordadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/518644_mums_anger_over_daughters_arrest
You know, one might call it the Four Seasons or the Shangri-Lah, but if one is there arrested, deprived of freedom, fingerprinted, DNAd and now apparently on a "children" database accessible to only 390,000 people, perhaps one can insist on calling it a "cell".
The next pasture is always greener
Doesn't Santa already have this database, for every naughty or nice child in the entire world? Nobody ever complained that that might fall into the wrong hands! He does have somewhat less than 390,000 elves though, admittedly.
Nick Waterman, Sr Tech Director, #include <stddisclaimer>
Or perhaps you can accept that the stories contradict each other and none of us have a clue about what actually happened?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Database on every child in the UK = database on every adult in the UK in just a few years.
Name 1 virus that can hack a Windows PC, from there hack a Citrix console, from there Hack a Redhat web server, from there hack an AIX application server, and from there hack a DB2 or Oracle database on a mainframe...
Sorry, but, err, can you include version numbers please...For my ...research project.
Thanks ;)
Is it a database of children in England? Then it's NOT the UK.
I can't see how this is a big deal. Really, how many children have the UK launched anyway? Maybe, back when catapults were more common child launching might have been more of an issue, but in this day and age, I just don't see the reason for a database.