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UK Switches Off £235M Child Database
wdef writes "The UK's controversial ContactPoint database has actually been switched off! It's rare that we hear anything this sensible from government about an expensive, privacy-destroying, 'think of the children' solution: 'The government argued the system was disproportionate to the problem, so is looking at developing other solutions.' Perhaps the UK coalition government really is winding back Big Brother, as they had promised to do? Does seem unlikely."
...that layers of forms and reams of data won't solve their problem.
of tomorrow.
Don't let them grow up in police states. ( The difference between a nanny state and a police state is very small )
If you opionion about the current state of surveillance is that it's no big problem, then consider, how much ressources former police states have spent on monitoring it's citizens.
Then spend some time realizing, that they didn't actually do as much surveillance, as western democracies are now doing.
The incident that spawned this database of children:
- Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactpoint
I can guarantee you that if this child was not physically abused, but instead had a picture taken of her with her clothes off (like in a bathtub) then those guardians would have ended up being arrested immediately and the child taken into protective services.
Because in this day and age violence is acceptable (to a degree) and excusable (for "punishment"), but nudity and sexuality are considered threatening and abusive. It is a perverted society that we live in.
The coalition is unpopular with a lot of Liberal Democrat voters (not sure what they'd prefer - probably for the LibDems to continue to be completely ineffectual, rather than to get at least some of their policies passed)
It's most loudly objected to by natural Labour supporters, who voted Liberal Democrat where their own candidate was a no-hoper. Sure, the left of the party aren't too pleased with the coalition but it's the Labour supporters, with their massive sense of entitlement that are really annoyed.
This isn't about preventing the Big Brother state, it's just trying to stop looking silly for having a duplicate website.
Well, if 'the best' is selling-off the NHS, destroying the BBC, and pretty much privatising everything else, I guess you're right. They have done a few good things (such as getting rid of some of Labour's mad illiberal laws), but they mostly seem to be a force of free-market greed so far. I guess we'll see in a few years. I'm disappointed by the Lib Dems, although of course it would have been a lot worse if the Tories had got a majority.
Actually, the Conservatives have been against civil liberty infringements for a while. David Davis resigned in protest about the 42 day detentions, for example. But, he added: "In truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms." He listed the growth of the "database state," government "snooping" ID cards, the erosion of jury trials and other issues. It's one of the big redeeming qualities of the conservatives, in my opinion... they've always said they'd scrap the ID card system too, which they are. Of the three major political parties, they probably aim to be the least intrusive.
(Lib Dem voter)
So far, the coalition seems to be the best government the UK has had while I've been alive
Only if you're Thatcherite and born after Thatcher was ousted. It's doing precisely what she did: blaming a previous socialist government for over-spending then implementing "austerity" measures which come down to pushing the neo-conservative agenda on Britain. 30 years ago there were wide-eyed Tories proudly announcing in the first few months of Thatcher - who was a fine orator for the easily soundbitten - how she would save the country with her laissez faire mantra.
If the government wants to save money, it can abandon unnecessary war, Trident, public-private partnerships and mid-level civil service bureaucracy. It can adjust the tax system not to favour offshoring, and stop bailing out bankers.
Don't forget:
so is looking at developing other solutions
Cameron's the kind of guy to make public statements telling Facebook to take down messages when they speak positively about people he doesn't like. If you think Blair was bad, it's because the honeymoon period isn't over. And can you recall the Blair honeymoon period?
ContactPoint and Blair's ID cards were abandoned because, well, they were overtly oppressive. The Tories, unlike Labour, recognise that you can't take away people's freedom by imposing classical Eastern programmes on them - you have to be more subtle. You lower taxes but raise a fuel escalator. You cherish freedom but implement the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. You talk about the freedom to do business but beat collective bargainers with a stick. And, within the first two years of government, you must divert all attention to some enemy: the Argentinians, the Russkies, the Arabs. I dread to think what Cameron will come up with.
one way to save £41m/year
How can it cost GBP 41 million per annum to operate a database? ...never mind spending GBP 235 million just to to set it up. Judging from the Wikipedia article this thing is a pretty normal database. I'm sure there's an awfully good reason for the price tag, training personnel etc. but even then I'm having a hard time seeing how that GBP 235 million price tag came into being, so what am I missing here?
No, that's not quite how the government works in the UK. It's more like this: Labour party gets power, tries to undo what it sees as excessive cuts made by the Conservatives in previous government, and spends more than it should. Or like now, the Conservatives get into power and cut the country to oblivion, because the previous Labour government spent beyond its means.
If you actually look at voting records, I'm quite sure you'll see that both parties are in favour of Big Brother, so don't be fooled. The treasury are just looking to make as many cuts as possible it seems, regardless of whether they're important (front-line services like the police, or cutting protection for sufferers of domestic violence) or not, as is the case with ContactPoint.
cat:
Don't think this fiasco is over yet. The UK government has a rather poor record of securing data. It won't be long until the entire database is up on WikiLeaks.
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I don't know how all their NHS changes will work out; my cynical side says it'll fail miserably, but there's always a chance it'll be successful.
However, they have done some things that are amazingly stupid, like cancelling the NHS-wide Microsoft Enterprise Agreement for licensing. They've gone from spending £100 million/year on licenses that allowed free use of Windows & Office and Server CALs across the 1.5 million user organisation to forcing each NHS Trust to negotiate their own agreements that are going to cost at least 3 times as much in total.
The two parties work in rather different ways. Under Liberal Democrat rules, Clegg had to get authorisation from a meeting of the whole parliamentary party, then from the party's national executive, and finally from a special conference held in Birmingham over the second weekend after the election. Under Conservative rules, Cameron made his decision and that was all that was necessary.
They are actually proposing mutualisation/co-operatives, which is rather different. The John Lewis group has been amply demonstrating over the declining years of the banking bubble just how resilient and effective mutuals can be (strictly it's a partnership), and the organisation of PCTs should be a prime case for mutualisation. On the other hand, the PCTs have become stuffed with Labour apparatchiks and have been busily empire building. People I know in the area, both on the left and the right, are appalled at how top-heavy they have become, with nurses reclassified as "managers" and ceasing to do useful jobs, while some PCTs are claimed to have been employing statisticians and IT staff specifically to game the McKinseyite target system. It needs sorting out. Mutualisation, giving the actual nursing and medical staff the power to vote on the running of the business, would seem to be a considerable step forward.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Oh, and by the way, the early 70s mining strikes could have been resolved if Harold Wilson hadn't deliberately sabotaged negotiations because it was more important to him to defeat the Conservatives than to protect the economy. When Wilson resigned, a colleague watching the news on television, a Welsh miner's son of impeccable left-wing credentials, actually shouted at the set that the "evil little bastard shouldn't be allowed to just walk away like that". With inside knowledge, he blamed Wilson, not Heath, for the miners' strike and their consequent impoverishment.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Brown didn't just use off balance sheet financing, Labour have been deficit spending since 2000. That's why every political party went into the last election promising government spending cuts to eliminate the 'structural' (permanent, not an effect of the recession) deficit.
The quote below is from the BBC website: