Red light for databases

Source: Agencies | March 24, 2009, Tuesday |

Print Edition

A QUARTER of government databases in Britain should be scrapped or redesigned because they are fundamentally flawed and probably illegal, a social justice think-tank said yesterday.

The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust said a review of 42 major state databases had found only six to be acceptable in terms of protecting individuals' privacy.

The rest is either graded "red" or "amber" under a traffic light rating assessing whether they were illegal under human rights or data protection law, or if they were collecting and sharing sensitive data without consent or proper legal basis.

Among the databases graded as "red" were the ContactPoint record of children's educational and social progress, as well as the NHS Detailed Care Record, which aims to share confidential patient records across the health service.

The police's National Fingerprint Database, the BBC's TV Licensing system and data kept for council tax returns were all judged to have minimal privacy concerns and judged "green."

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Red light for databases

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