The Database State:

"Hidden in the new Coroners and Justice Bill is one clause (cl.152) amending the Data Protection Act. It would allow ministers to make 'Information Sharing Orders', that can alter any Act of Parliament and cancel all rules of confidentiality in order to use information obtained for one purpose to be used for another.

This single clause is as grave a threat to privacy as the entire ID Scheme. Combine it with the index to your life formed by the planned National Identity Register and everything recorded about you anywhere could be accessible to any official body."

(from www.no2ID.net)

Today I read in the paper how 'ContactPoint, a £224 million directory, containing the name, address, date of birth, GP and school of all under 18s - as well as the name and contact details of any professional working with a child, is being rolled out.'

(from www.metro.co.uk)

"Parents will not have the option of requesting that their child is removed from the list", Children's Minister Baroness Delyth Morgan said. The idea behind this is to ensure that no child falls through the cracks of the support they may need. Now, before anyone starts wagging their finger at me and mentioned 'Baby P', the plans for this database began in 2000 (albeit from the Laming Inquiry over the death of another child).

"In total around 390,000 people will have access to the database, Baroness Morgan said. This includes local authorities, Government agencies, the police, the NHS and some children's charities."

(www.metro.co.uk)

Do all those people REALLY need to know all that information? I for one think not. Then consider that this database is COMPULSORY. THEN consider that the Government seems incapable of holding onto important information.

This has GOT to stop. While the database has now been rolled out, the ID cards for us all have not. The No2ID campaign informs us that:

"The Home Office's stated position is currently that every Government Department, Local Authority and public sector body will have to do a "business case" and decide whether or not to 'buy in' to the ID scheme, i.e. all the costs will come out of their existing budgets, but there are NO PENALTIES (yet) for those that decide not to join up."

I suggest we join this campaign.

Ram.