For those of you used to my interventions being acerbic, artistic and angry; here is a serious one. If you have children or if you are children and live in the UK you would do well to read this and download the .pdf file.
'Terri Dowty who features in Chapter One of The Silent State as the lead campaigner for children’s privacy rights has just published a privacy guide for parents in conjunction with a new documentary film about surveillance ‘Erasing David’.
You’ll likely be surprised at the amount of data being collected on kids. Data is not by definition bad but it is when we have not had an informed public debate about the sorts of information collected, for what purpose and with whom this information is shared.
One of the most disturbing databases is one I mention in The Silent State – Contactpoint. This is a new, national government database containing the contact details of every child from birth to 18 plus a list of every service that the child is using. It is designed to allow practitioners to contact each other directly to discuss your child, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, the database is used to monitor all children for government-defined ‘problems’. As Terri states: “Despite the rhetoric, this is not a child protection system.” Will you know what data is being stored on your child in this database?
No. Children are automatically entered on to the database at birth.
Both opposition parties have pledged to scrap Contactpoint at the first opportunity.
You can download the privacy guide for parents here (pdf).'
Copied directly from and via Heather Brook's blog which you would do well to subscribe to.
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