Council chiefs and YOTs warned on personal data
Neil Puffett
Monday, September 27, 2010
A children's rights campaign group has written to all youth offending teams (YOTs) in England and Wales warning them that they may be breaking the law by uploading information on young people to a computer system.
The move comes after Action on Rights For Children (Arch) raised concerns with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) last year that data uploaded to a system introduced by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) could lead to the possible identification of children.
The Youth Justice Management Information System (YJMIS) collects more personal data from YOTs than the system it replaced in July last year, including postcode and date-of-birth details. The ICO has now ruled the data represents personal information and is in discussion with the YJB over how to address the situation.
Terri Dowty, director of Arch, said letters have been sent to all local authority chief executives and YOT managers calling on them not to include personal data in any future uploads and to ask the YJB to delete any previously uploaded data.
The letter warns that legal action could be taken if this is not done.
"Of all people, youth justice agencies should be the first to understand that nobody can simply ignore the law," Dowty said. "Too many local authorities have still not got a proper grip on data protection and security issues."
A spokeswoman for the YJB said: "To ensure appropriate information assurance safeguards are in place, the Youth Justice Board has already engaged a government-approved consultant to work with us and the ICO. We aim to communicate an agreed position to YOTs shortly."
Last year, CYP Now revealed that a number of YOTs put off signing up for the new system during the national rollout of YJMIS while seeking legal advice.
