Conservatives commit to scrapping ContactPoint database
Neil Puffett
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Conservatives have cemented their commitment to scrapping the controversial ContactPoint database after featuring the pledge in a policy paper designed to protect personal liberty.
The paper, Reversing the Rise of the Surveillance State, outlines plans for fewer central databases and stronger duties on government to keep the private information it gathers safe in an 11-point plan.
The ContactPoint database will eventually hold the details of 11 million children and young people to allow professionals working with them to see who else they are in contact with.
Launching the policy paper, Dominic Grieve, shadow justice secretary, said: "This government's approach to our personal privacy is the worst of all worlds - intrusive, ineffective and enormously expensive.
"As we have seen time and time again, over-reliance on the database state is a poor substitute for the human judgment and care essential to the delivery of frontline public services."
