Generation ID: Worries about kiddyprinting

suspects: “Why should we have our fingerprints or DNA stored if we have done nothing wrong?” The Criminal Justice Act 2003 gave the police new powers to retain DNA samples of anyone arrested for a recordable offense. As a result of increasing numbers of children being picked up for low-level offenses and then routinely DNA-sampled, Dowty estimates that samples from close to one million children are now on the National DNA Database. According to Home Office figures, between 33,000 and 82,000 of these have never been convicted or even reprimanded. Going by Youth Justice Board arrest statistics, Dowty believes the figure is probably at the higher end of this range. In addition to the principle of routine DNA sampling, Dowty is also concerned about how reliable it is in practice. She says that people do not realize how often mistakes are made with DNA samples, especially with techniques such as low copy number (LCN) DNA testing, where forensics try to generate a DNA sample from one cell. Far from being the infallible test of popular understanding, the FBI and others have, since 2001, urged caution when using LCN DNA sampling as a forensic technique.

Database Central

In an effort to predict which children will become delinquent the government now wants to collect children’s data in a central trilogy of databases containing medical information, school results, social work case notes, and records from other public services. First, ContactPoint is an index of every child in the United Kingdom between birth and eighteen years of age. Second, the Electronic Common Assessment Framework (eCAF) will serve as an in-depth profiling mechanism; it is, in Dowty’s opinion, “the most intrusive personal assessment tool.” Third, there is the Integrated Children’s System (ICS), holding the social care records of each child. Dowty argues that: “Because we’re so penny pinching we’ve developed this secondary prevention, which identifies all children from deprived areas as potential criminals and of course stigmatises the child completely.” She sees these surveillance techniques as just a technical fix for the real problems and dangers facing children, and believes they mask the chronic shortage of child protection social workers. “In most areas there is something like a 20 percent vacancy rate for child and family social workers and in some closer to 50 percent,” she says. “What we’ve never done is tackle this shortage and look at why so many are leaving the profession. We also have this obsession with managerialism and targets. We’re pretending that people with social care problems are susceptible to a production line approach — and they’re not. It’s actually a very dangerous approach.” Dowty believes the government must be prevented from going any further. “We must start enforcing laws on consent. It’s something parliament hasn’t looked at since 1969 and it is time we had a review. That’ll be a start,” she says.

The advisory council of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) has conducted a report on “Children’s Databases — Safety and Privacy,” which may be downloaded here.