The Tracking Trade

The Sunday Times carried news of a recent report on forced marriages, from which this paragraph jumped out at me:

According to the report, women who go to the authorities to seek protection have been tracked down through their mobile phones or even by leaks of confidential information from government databases.

No great surprise there, I guess. One only has to remember the Information Commissioner’s 2006 report ‘What Price Privacy?’ (pdf) which detailed:

“…a flourishing and unlawful trade in confidential personal information by unscrupulous tracing agents and corrupt employees with access to personal information.”

I wonder how many girls will remember to apply to have their Contactpoint record ‘shielded’ when they run away…?