In view of the recent news about the government's plans for a database to record all our travel information, it might be appropriate to pause a moment and remember some of the things people have said in the past about the idea of privacy …
"the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilised men" - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis in 1928
"This notion of privacy derives from the assumption that all information about a person is in a fundamental way his own, for him to communicate or retain as he sees fit" - "Privacy and Computers", 1972
"Civilization is the progress of a society toward privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from man" - Ayn Rand, 1943
"A man has a right to pass through this world, if he wills, without having his picture published, his business enterprises discussed, his successful experiments written for the benefit of others, or his eccentricities commented upon, whether in handbills, circulars, catalogues, newspapers or periodicals" - New York State Court of Appeals Chief Justice Parker, 1901
"Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others" - Professor Alan Westin, 1967
"Privacy is related entirely to the degree to which we respect each other as unique individuals, each with our own sets of values which we are entitled to make known or not as we see fit. To truly respect your neighbour, you must grant that person a private life. Respecting one another's privacy means the difference between a life of liberty, autonomy and dignity, and a hollow and intimidating existence under a cloud of constant oppressive surveillance" - Bruce Phillips, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 1999
All good stuff, no doubt. Certainly hundreds of British politicians, celebrities and local bigwigs agree with it. It was revealed a couple of weeks ago that they will be able to keep their addresses and details about their families off the Government's new children's database. They will be allowed to withdraw everything but their children's names, sex and ages from the controversial computer record.
Powerful and influential parents who believe they will be in danger from others who may be 'hostile' will have their details struck off the ContactPoint database along with domestic violence victims and those in witness protection programmes.
But the great majority of ordinary families will be compelled to display their contact details alongside information about their children and their schools, doctors and social workers.
News of the 'get-out' clause will only add to the anger and suspicion that has greeted the £224million project. It has already has been hit by a string of delays over concerns over the security of the highly sensitive data it holds. Ministers released details about the numbers likely to be able to take advantage of the 'get-out' rules as they launched the database. Officials estimate that hundreds of parents in each local authority will be included in a 'shielding' system which will limit information about them on ContactPoint because they are judged to be 'at risk of significant harm'. Across all the 150 town halls that will run the database, that adds up to at least 50,000.
Not that one can entirely blame them. Information on the database will not be exactly confidential, as nearly 400,000 individuals will be able to look at it, including council staff, health workers, police officers, and even staff of voluntary groups and charities who have passed criminal records checks.
Shami Chakrabarti of the Liberty pressure group said: 'If you feel you need to shield one group of children, it throws doubt over everyone's security. Every child should be shielded from this database.'
Information to be stored on the database will include the child's name, identification number ("I am not a number, I'm a free man!" - the late P.McGoohan), sex, date of birth, address, parents' contact details, GP contact details, health visitor contact details, school details, school nurse contact details, youth worker contact details, social worker contact details, "sensitive service" contact details concerning sex, drugs or mental health, and a "common assessment framework indicator" for children with "unmet needs". It goes without saying that it won't be long before someone realises that some children don't actually have a social worker, for instance, but plainly the box needs to be filled so every child must be allocated to a social worker. Don't grin and think it'll never happen: I used to work in a local authority, I know how they think, and it'll happen, trust me. After all, it's to protect the children, isn't it?
And of course no one dares protest when "it's to protect the children" - I mean, who wants to look like a child-murderer or a paedophile?
Speaking of protecting the children, the Websters from Norfolk were on TV this evening after losing their court case, which means that the three children who were snatched from them will never be returned. Regular readers will remember that the Websters were falsely accused of child abuse by Norfolk social workers, and although the police investigated and found there was no case to answer, the secret Family Court thought it knew better and took their children.
Also on the TV news item the head of Norfolk's Children's Services, the detestable Lisa Christensen, was interviewed. Despite the fact that the Websters have now been cleared of any wrong-doing, despite the fact that Christensen's own department abandoned its intention to remove a fourth child as soon as it was born, despite the fact that Christensen patronisingly said the Websters were doing a good job with their one remaining child, she still refuses to admit that there has been any injustice, refuses to apologise, and is still hiding behind the social workers' mantra, "the interests of the children must come first".
So that's all right, then. Strangers bursting into the home in the middle of the night, policemen holding their parents, shouting and screaming and crying as bewildered children are snatched from their beds and bundled into cars for reasons they cannot possibly understand, that's all in the children's interests? Of course it is.
And being farmed out to strangers - in one recent case, to a pair of homosexual men - to stay there for ever, never to see or hear from their real parents again, that's all in the children's interests? Of course it is.
And all these proceedings ordered by a room full of social workers and lawyers, a secret court that allows no witnesses, no members of the press, that gags any attempt by newspapers to report what goes on or the parent victims even to discuss it outside on pain of prison, a court that can do as it damn well likes because no one will ever know for certain, that's all in the children's interests? Of course it is.
If you aren't convinced by all this, if you are so naïve as to persist in thinking that these Family Courts ought to be allowed no more rights to secrecy than any other court, that justice should be seen to be done, and that the daylight of publicity needs to fall on the nefarious incompetence of social workers, then … well, you obviously don't have the interests of the children at heart. You must be some kind of paedophile.
But don't let that stop you writing to your MP about it. Suggest to him that the court judgement in the case of the Websters means that parents unjustly accused have no redress in law, that the state condones the brutal breaking-up of innocent families, and that the entire Family Court system needs a penetrating parliamentary analysis, preferably by means of a public enquiry.
Go on, do it. If enough of us make a fuss, eventually something may get done. It'll be too late for the Websters - their children will soon have forgotten who they are. But it might stop this sort of official abuse happening to others in future.
You can contact your MP on www.WriteTo Them.com.
The GOS says: There are also three government petitions you could sign, if you thought they might take any notice which, frankly, I don't. They are linked at the bottom of this page.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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