ISC sends letter to the Guardian

28 August 2008

The Independent Schools Council's Deputy Chief Executive, Matthew Burgess has sent a letter to the Guardian in response to the Guardian's 'Launch of controversial government database delayed' article.

Letter to the Guardian

Sir,

We welcome the Government's decision to delay deployment of ContactPoint until it is properly robust (New delay for £224m children's database, 29 August).  But we fear that no amount of tinkering will ever make ContactPoint secure. The Government's own review, commissioned from Deloitte last year, identified a number of security failings, pointed to significant risks to the database caused by lack of expertise and resource, noted the limits on the ContactPoint team's ability to monitor breaches or control breakdowns, and hinted that the true cost of fixing these bugs could be excessive. But is a cost-benefit analysis the right approach when it relates to the security of information about every child in England?  The reality is that all databases are liable to security lapses. The only effective way to safeguard our children's data is to scrap the whole ContactPoint system.  

Yours,

Matthew Burgess,
Independent Schools Council