After writing about the lack of commitment from the Conservatives to scrapping Contactpoint, It’s heartening to read this:
But the Tories are calling for the scheme to be ditched. Tim Loughton, the Conservative spokesman for children, said it should be replaced by a smaller, more tightly controlled database.
There’s certainly a case to be argued for a restricted system to communicate with other authorities when a child genuinely at risk of ‘significant harm’ moves areas, especially if it’s without warning, and it makes it more likely that such a child will be noticed if the wires aren’t crowded with trivial chatter. The challenge would be to maintain security on a system that contained the details of the most vulnerable children in the country.
Now we need to hear David Cameron confirm that he would scrap the Contactpoint/eCAF schemes and dismantle all of the other systems that invade children’s privacy.
