Great Britian is moving towards a huge database that will cover the life history of each and every child in England and Wales:
Changes... include a £224 million database tracking all 12 million children in England and Wales from birth. The Government expects the programme to be operating within two years.If two "items of concern" are noted for a child, it may trigger an investigation. As you might imagine, like any other government project the scope of the database will include both the important and the inane:
"[Concerns] include consuming five portions of fruit and veg a day, which I am baffled how they will measure," [a critic] said.
From the standpoint of disaggregation, the database and associated programs disaggregate both authority and ownership (of information) from the multitude of government agencies that have them; and for that matter, from the hands of the doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers, and others who have information as well as control of its distribution and decision-making authority. This disaggregated information becomes a component in a huge government program intended to prevent child abuse as well as implement other, as yet unknown goals. This database is clearly revolutionary if — and it's a big "if" — the database actually functions as intended. Then question becomes whether this revolution will turn out to be good or bad.
Topics: · government · privacy
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