Overlooked - Liberty

Overlooked: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain 63
up with complex databases which contain too much highly-sensitive information that would be
difficult to interpret out of context. The cost of this, both in human and financial terms, could be very
high’. In effect critics were warning of the worst of all possible worlds. A database with excessive
scope for information retention could result in information giving rise to a ‘cause for concern’ 136
being recorded to such an extent that indicators of a child genuinely being at risk might be missed
by not ‘seeing the woods for the trees’. It is easy to see how a social worker or other person
inputting data would be tempted to always err on the side of caution when deciding what
information to enter on the index so as to avoid culpability in the future.
On the other hand, the mass retention and dissemination of data created the prospect of privacy
intrusion to children and their families. The information hub imagined in the white paper would have
allowed a multitude of agencies access to information not only about children and their families. If
for example, the mother of a child suffered from post-natal depression, that might be considered
information that was a ‘cause for concern’ relevant to a number of agencies even though it was
private and sensitive medical data.
The Children Bill remained relatively unchanged during its progress through Parliament and
became the Children Act 2004. The debates in Parliament were distinct from those on the ID card
bill in that there was little expression of principled opposition to the concept of a database of
children at risk. Concerns centred on the potential for familial intrusion without a corresponding
child protection benefit. These were exacerbated by the fact that entry onto the children’s index
was not to be limited to children who were considered at risk. All children will be included. This
raises an interesting proportionality issue in that the privacy concerns might have been considered
less of an issue if the case for child protection had been more widely accepted. However, when
the Bill was passing through Parliament both privacy lobbyists and those primarily interested in
child protection seemed to agree that the Bill served neither cause particularly well. As the
Children’s Legal Centre, an organisation concerned with children’s privacy and wider children’s
rights issues said, ‘Although the underlying intention is entirely positive, the operation of such a
system raises issues of human rights and data protection which must also be considered when
deciding where the best interests of the child lie’ 137 .
It appears that some of the concerns expressed during passage of the Bill were at least partially
taken on board by the Government. As with much privacy legislation the detail on exactly who would
be able to access what information was not written onto the face of the Bill but reserved for a later
date to be published in regulations. These regulations went out to public consultation in late 2006
and demonstrated that there had been some attention paid to the potential for mass informational
overload. For example details of ‘sensitive services’ such as mental health, sexual health or
substance abuse treatment would not be entered onto the register (although the fact that a sensitive
service was being received would be). Anyone with access to the register would need a Criminal
Records Bureau check and would need to have received proper training. The regulations also
recognised that consent was an important and relevant issue and attempted to incorporate a
consent requirement for certain types of informational disclosure.
136
Section 12 (4) (g) of the Children Act 2004 allows the recording of ‘information as to the existence of any
cause for concern in relation to him’
137
http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/shared_asp_files/uploadedfiles/%7BDFA9D7E3-8287-4621-93F4-
89F386DAB618%7D_Information%20Sharing%20Databases.pdf