EVERY CHILD IS EQUAL..BUT THE GOVERNMENT'S CHILDREN ARE MORE EQUAL THAN YOURS

12.00.00am GMT Thu 22nd Nov 2007

Personal details on every child in Essex including their name, date of birth, school, GP and parent's contact details, will be collected and stored on a government database - except the children of politicians and the rich and famous who are explicitly excluded. Liberal Democrats at Essex County Council have called for a full council debate on this project, named ContactPoint, which the group says is an unnecessary intrusion into the privacy of many children and their parents.

Cllr Anne Turrell who is the Lib Dem spokesman for children, said: "There is nobody who can guarantee the security of any computer system. Given the government's recent catastrophic data blunder in losing 25 million pieces of confidential information, it is hard to imagine they really believe the public can have any confidence in this project. The fact that the government has deliberately shielded their own children from this database, speaks volumes for their own lack of trust in their own proposal.

"There are likely to be around 330,000 people with access to the database and that greatly increases the risks of accidental or inadvertent breaches of security, as well as deliberate misuse of the data."

Essex County Council will be responsible for the collection and input of data and it will also be liable for the accuracy of the information. Nationally the project will cost £224 million to set up and a further £41 million a year to run.

Cllr Anne Turrell continued, "ContactPoint has been triggered by the inquiry into the appalling abuse of Victoria Climbie and we are told that storing information on every child will help to identify the few that are at risk of abuse. Ironically, Victoria herself would probably not have been on such a database until her situation and involvement with accessing services was well advanced. It is clear that collecting information on every child is a disproportionate and unreasonable response, which may well put children at risk who were not already at risk."

ENDS