Editorial: Discs blunder ups pressure on ContactPoint

ContactPoint will carry the name, address, date of birth, school, health provider and name and details of anyone with parental responsibility or day-to-day care of each child. It has been expected to go live at the end of next year. But the disappearance of the child benefit data discs last week prompted Children's Secretary Ed Balls to order an independent security review of ContactPoint.

Indeed, in a coincidence of timing, a report commissioned by England's children's rights director to gauge young people's own views about the system has found 83 per cent have deep concerns that information about them could fall into the wrong hands. The Conservatives meanwhile have called for the entire initiative to be put on ice. Balls is right to order a stocktake of the security processes in place for the proposed database in order to ensure they are as watertight as possible. The postal disappearance fiasco of the child benefit CDs though raises concerns that are more administrative than technological.