The Mark of the Beast...
why not just barcode them, or use rfid implants under the skin, or tattoo "666" on their foreheads?
it ain't no joke.
The UK's proposed child database has been delayed after "feedback from stakeholders" and not obviously in response to the government's loss of the UK's child benefit database on two CDs. ContactPoint will contain details on every child in the UK including name, address, gender and a unique identifying number. The database will …
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—Usage note
Till and until are both old in the language and are interchangeable as both prepositions and conjunctions: It rained till (or until) nearly midnight. The savannah remained brown and lifeless until (or till) the rains began. Till is not a shortened form of until and is not spelled 'till. 'Til is usually considered a spelling error, though widely used in advertising: Open 'til ten.
This would be somewhat justifiable if the authorities were able to make use of the data they already have in a useful manner.
I served on my local council for a number of years, and was on the housing committee. Time and again we would have an "urgent housing" request come on from the social services people at the county council. The reason: a youngster was turning 16 and therefore coming out of care, needing to be housed. Whatever your feelings about whether 16 year olds should be taking council flats, the fact that, time and again, Social Services were taken by surprise by a 16th birthday was as vexing as it was hilarious.
But lets not try to make people actually do their jobs, no we'll put in place "systems" which will also be taken by surprise by 16th birthdays, despite assembling the most potent honeypot for all classes of villains. I get so pissed off by the "safeguards will be put in place to prevent unauthorised access" mantra. Of course, it's never been known for someone with "authorised access" to misuse data, no siree.
All this "security review" will do is throw up a load of "recommendations" which gummint will then claim to have acted on, the action actually being to say "we have added useless safeguards" and doing nothing, just blundering on down the same path. Oh, and feed a few million quid into the pockets of another bunch of "IT Security Charlatans".
> As I live abroad, can someone tell me if this 'child database' is to be compulsory?
Not sure about the compulsory part (quite probably, though) - but it's certainly already covert. Witness reports of kids being coerced into providing fingerprints without reference to parents, so they can use the school library. (reported here on ElReg, IIRC)
Once upon a time a card provided by the teacher was enough for library use.
I suspect the child database is compulsory - by dint of the fact that in the UK you have to register a birth within six weeks. (A criminal offence not to, IIRC)
Of course, as with all licensing/registration requirements, in order to work it does rather rely on the non-law abiding being, errr, law abiding.