WRITTEN ON August 4th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, We told you so..., What do we want?

ContactPoint database could put 11 million children at risk

Every child in England could be at risk because of security failings in the Government’s controversial children’s database, experts have claimed.

By Heidi Blake
Published: 3:19PM BST 03 Aug 2009

ContactPoint is designed to help protect England’s 11 million children by giving officials a single register of their names, ages and addresses as well as details of their schools, parents and GPs. But the database is riddled with security failings so serious that “even a child” could steal sensitive information from it, according to Overtis Systems, the data safety specialists..Ongoing faults mean the system is vulnerable to viruses and spyware, and users could have their sessions “hijacked” while away from their computers, Overtis Systems said…

…from the TelegraphBut…but…but it all looked so secure when generalist senior officials went and visited Cap Gemini’s innovation centre in Woking. The security arrangements seemed so stringent!

PR firms have realised that pointing out government IT security failings is shooting fish in a barrel. But it’s new that suppliers should feel the present approach is so transparently discredited that they can come out openly.