Child database plan under attack following missing discs debacle

A review of security has been ordered over Government plans to put the personal details of 11 million schoolchildren on to a database. The move comes in the wake of the HM Revenue and Customs missing discs debacle.

Information about every child's name, address, their parents or guardians as well as contact details for each government service they use, including which GP they go to, are to be held on a £224m database called ContactPoint planned for the new year. The information is to be made available to 330,000 government workers on the internet and only a two-part security authentication will be needed to access the data.

Parents' groups have protested against putting their children on the database, fearing it could be dangerous. But the loss of the personal details of 25 million people receiving child benefit prompted fresh demands from parents for a rethink of the entire scheme.

Mary MacLeod, chief executive of the National Family and Parenting Institute said: "Parents and their children are already worried about how secure ContactPoint will be, especially because of the number of people who will have access to details about their children. In the light of recent events the Government should reconsider whether a database with all the children's names in the country is the best way to ensure that information about children at risk is properly shared, so they can be protected."

Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary, has ordered an urgent independent review of security surrounding the planned database but he is under pressure to order that it should be entirely encrypted if it goes ahead.

The database will be accessible through any computer on the internet, provided users have the correct two-part security authentication. No one will be allowed to opt out of the database, but children or their parents will have the right to ask to see information about them and challenge it. Children's details also may be electronically "shielded" if they are considered to be at increased risk, such as the children of high-profile figures who could be kidnap targets.

The Liberal Democrat spokesman for children, Annette Brooke, said all children's data should be encrypted. She said ContactPoint information "could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands".

"The Government has said that unspecified safeguards will be put in place for children of celebrities but why shouldn't everyone enjoy this privilege?" she said. "There could be more than financial costs if the addresses of vulnerable children from a family separated because of domestic violence, for example, are not kept secure. The Government has proven itself not be trusted with large databases containing personal details.The failure of security procedures by HMRC has left millions of parents extremely worried and raises questions about the safety of other records stored by the Government."

But the Tories are calling for the scheme to be ditched. Tim Loughton, the Conservative spokesman for children, said it should be replaced by a smaller, more tightly controlled database. A spokesman for Mr Balls said he had asked David Bell, the permanent secretary at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, to carry out the review of his department's data security. He reported back last Friday that it was "very robust".

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is facing calls for a fresh Commons statement today on the "data disaster" after the shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, claimed he has "not told the whole truth" to Parliament. It emerged over the weekend that six more discs had gone missing from the HMRC. They were sent by post on 10 October from a Preston tax credit office to Whitehall.

The Government will review too whether NHS patient information should be sent abroad for processing.

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