Every employee of England's police forces, as well as many teachers, will have access to the system containing information on all children in England.
Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, released a list of the job positions that will have access to the ContactPoint system on Wednesday, in a written parliamentary answer to Keith Vaz, the Labour chair of the home affairs select committee.
As well as all police officers and staff covering a geographic area, the system will be available to healthcare professionals and their assistants; officers of local probation boards and youth offending teams; heads, officers and administrators at prisons and secure training centres; and all social-care workers.
Access to ContactPoint will also be available to school headteachers, deputy heads, heads of year, other teachers with pastoral or child-protection responsibilities, special-needs teachers and co-ordinators, as well as holders of similar posts at further-education and higher-education establishments.
Access will also be given to five charities, including Barnardo's and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, as well as employees of fire and rescue authorities working on strategies for children and young people.
Talkback
The article says that ALL children will be on the database. We already know that the children of "Important" people will not be on there. It was seen, get this, as a security risk to have those kids' details on such an accessible system. Hypocrites!
Must be a Home Office project as it is so badly planned. The logical and obvious means of access to such a very sensitive register, such a natural target for paedophiles, must be one nomimated and thoroughly screened person at each establishment that actually needs access to the data. This means ONE police officer per division, the headmaster at each school, one senior sister at each childrens' hospital. Local Councils do NOT need access, nor do prison staff or any of the other public servants that think it will enhance their position.
The criteria must be actual NEED to know, not just convenience or having it as additional available data just in case.
It is a very dangerous project and, if it really is necessary, must be so treated and be overseen by the Data Commissioner.