UK parents to get online check of 8m child workers records

The UK Government today announces plans for a massive data, security and privacy own goal, in the shape of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. The Bill, which is intended to widen and centralise the vetting of people working with children (approximately 8 million individuals), will allow (indeed, compel) employers, including parents hiring nannies and childminders, to check the records of potential employees online.

The production of the centralised (with "real time" updating) list will be a mega IT challenge of itself. Several overlapping lists (including List 99 for education, the Sex Offenders Register and the Protection of Children Act lists) currently exist, and the task of merging them leaves plenty of scope for the usual delays and disasters. And there are legal considerations which we'll go into shortly.

The big sales point for the Bill, however, is the reassurance that fast checking of an up to date central database of teachers, nannies, care and youth workers can offer to parents. Secure online access for schools is perhaps just about conceivable, given that the location of terminals and the authorised users of the system can at least in theory be severely restricted (in, erm, schools and education administration offices throughout the country - no, we don't really believe that either), but how do you handle nannies? Children's Minister Beverley Hughes (last seen in these parts letting large numbers of fraudulent visa applicants through a huge Home Office security hole) assures us that "parents for the first time will be able to check online when they're employing a nanny or a music teacher [for example]", so we have here a vast widening of both the population that is to be vetted and of those with a right and requirement to access the records. Online, instantly.

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