Circumventing the Data Protection Act 1998

Since the introduction of the Children and Young People Bill councils in Scotland have been preparing their data management strategies. From the Renfrewshire Child Protection Committee we have: `Keeping our children safe`

Remember, nothing whatsoever, in Scottish, UK and/or European Law and/or in the Scottish child protection legislative, policy and/or practice environments prevents you from sharing personal information and in some cases sensitive personal information where you are worried or concerned about a child or young person’s wellbeing. On the contrary, you are, within certain limitations and constraints, empowered to do so.

Where you have agreed to share information you should do so with the child or young person’s Named Person (and if already appointed and/or known the Lead Professional).

Consent should only be sought when the individual has a real choice over the matter. If you have a genuine, professional concern in relation to a child or young person’s wellbeing that you believe must be shared with another service, agency and/or practitioner with or without consent, there is no requirement to seek consent ...

http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/wps/wcm/connect/44bcba54-3e2c-4709-af01-a19c9eaabcb9/sw-GIRFEC-Practitioners-+GuidetoInformationSharing-all-staff.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

Sensitive personal information includes health, race, sexuality, religion, criminal offences, political opinions, trade union membership etc. And access to all this information comes about because the threshold for state intervention has been lowered from a `risk of significant harm` to some practitioner`s subjective concern about a child`s wellbeing, which may lead to harm, or may not.

The only thing a practitioner needs to do is to build a narrative of wellbeing concern around a few potentially unrelated observations.
We can imagine a possible scenario: Wee Jimmy has missed a lot of school recently; he has been very quiet in class, not like himself and Mummy has had a new baby but has not been seen in the neighbourhood.  Rumour has it the boyfriend ran off.  A concerned adult informs the Named Person who decides she needs to find out what is `going on`. After all, it is her role to avert a crisis. The truth is wee Jimmy had the flu and has still not quite regained his strength but is on the mend. The family is delighted with the new baby but it has been too cold to take it out and Dad is working away to earn money for Christmas. Everybody is happy.

Some people misconstrue events more easily than others. It`s those people who are going to be the real menaces with this new legislation.

Governments , both north and south, have introduced legislation to undermine the Data Protection Act and the Information Commissioner has bent over to accommodate the new legislation.  In England the DPA is circumvented through integrated services and the `troubled families` scheme .

Here is Maureen Falconer reassuring everyone that the Data Protection Act is not a barrier to sharing information. Unfortunately, until it is legally contested, that is the case.





There have been plenty of data breaches.

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240204497/Aberdeen-City-Council-gets-100000-penalty-for-IT-security-failings