Shoppers to use fingerprints or eye scans to pay for goods

Barclaycard has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in “contactless payment” technology  Photo: Getty Images

Shoppers could soon be able to pay for goods and services using their fingerprints, or iris identification techniques.

Telegraph | Sep 8, 2008

By Myra Butterworth

The futuristic systems, like those used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report, are being developed by scientists for Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in “contactless payment” technology.

This allows customers to use everyday items they carry around with them - such as mobile phones, key fobs or even their eyes or fingerprints - to make payments.

It means shoppers will no longer have to rely on cards.

Barclaycard, which is part of Barclays, has already introduced a new-style cash machine in the United Arab Emirates enabling people to use their fingerprints to withdraw money and shoppers in the UK may soon be able to use the same technology.

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: “It’s possible we’ll see an end to plastic in the next five to 10 years with new technologies to take its place emerging now. It could turn out to be one of the shortest lived payment methods in history, going from being ubiquitous to a museum piece in the same way as the video cassette.”

Barclaycard also aims to have one million customers upgraded to its contactless payment system OnePulse by the end of the year. OnePulse enables people to buy items for less than £10 by touching their card against a sensor, without even having to take it out of their wallet. It can also be used as an Oyster card on London transport.

Barclaycard said people may soon be able to hover their mobile over the price label of an item in a shop, confirm their purchase and take it away without having to go to a checkout or get a receipt.

Mr Jenkins said: “If I had said to you 10 years ago that you couldn’t pay with a cheque at the supermarket, you wouldn’t have believed me. That is now the reality, and we see plastic cards going the same way eventually.”

Anti-terrorism laws used to spy on noisy children

Councils are using anti-terrorism laws to spy on residents and tackle barking dogs and noisy children.

Telegraph | Sep 6, 2008

By Chris Hastings

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph found that three quarters of local authorities have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 over the past year.

The Act gives councils the right to place residents and businesses under surveillance, trace telephone and email accounts and even send staff on undercover missions.

The findings alarmed civil liberties campaigners. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: “Councils do a grave disservice to professional policing by using serious surveillance against litterbugs instead of terrorists.”

The RIPA was introduced to help fight terrorism and crime. But a series of extensions, first authorised by David Blunkett in 2003, mean that Britain’s 474 councils can use the law to tackle minor misdemeanours.

Councils are using the Act to tackle dog fouling, the unauthorised sale of pizzas and the abuse of the blue badge scheme for disabled drivers.

Among 115 councils that responded to a Freedom of Information request, 89 admitted that they had instigated investigations under the Act. The 82 councils that provided figures said that they authorised or carried out a total of 867 RIPA investigations during the year to August

Durham county council emerged as the biggest user, with just over 100 surveillance operations launched during the period. Newcastle city council used the powers 82 times, and Middlesbrough council 70 times.

Derby council made sound recordings of a property after a complaint about noisy children.

Surveillance operations aimed at individual homes and businesses can last for months. Calderdale council in West Yorkshire began “direct covert surveillance” targeting one business in May that is still going on.

Local authorities including Bassetlaw, Easington, Bolsover and Darlington have placed houses under video or photographic surveillance to tackle problems such as anti-social behaviour, unauthorised entry into gardens and benefit fraud. Others admitted using council staff to follow residents to determine whether they were working while claiming benefits.

Northampton council, which did not implement the Act during the past 12 months, said that it had used the legislation on five previous occasions to tackle dog fouling. Councils have used the RIPA to recruit children for surveillance operations. Dudley and County Durham exploited the Act to send children into shops with secret video and audio equipment to see whether they could buy cigarettes and alcohol. Officials in Durham have mounted 60 RIPA investigations against these kinds of businesses in the past 12 months.

Sir Jeremy Beecham, the acting chairman of the Local Government Association, which represents councils, said last night: “Councils are tuned into people’s fears about the potential overzealous use of these crime- fighting powers. They know that they’re only to be used to tackle residents’ complaints about serious offences, like when benefit cheats are robbing hard-working taxpayers or fly-by-night traders are ripping off vulnerable pensioners.”

He added: “Councils do not use these powers to mount fishing expeditions. First and foremost it is about protecting the public, not intruding on privacy. Crime-busting powers are targeted at suspected criminals and used only when absolutely necessary.”
Smokers, drivers and even emails are being monitored

* Newcastle City Council used the Act to monitor noise levels from smoking shelters at two different licensed premises. The council has twice used the legislation to monitor noise from a vet’s practice following a complaint about barking.

* Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council used it to deal with 16 complaints about barking dogs.

* Derby Council made sound recordings at a property following a complaint about noisy children.

* Peterborough Council investigated the operation of the blue badge scheme for disabled drivers.

* Poole Council used it to detect illegal fishing in Poole Harbour.

* Basingstoke Council used photographic surveillance against one of its own refuse collectors after allegations he was charging residents for a service that should be free. The operation was dropped when it was decided the allegation was false.

* Aberdeenshire Council admitted using the Scottish version of the Act to request the name and address of a mobile phone user as part of an investigation into offences under the Weights and Measures Act.

* Easington council put a resident’s garden under camera surveillance after a complaint from neighbours about noise.

* Canterbury City Council used CCTV surveillance and an officer’s observations to monitor illegal street trading.

* Brighton and Hove council launched four operations against graffiti artists

* Torbay Council accessed an employee’s emails after an allegation that suspect material had been sent. A second employee was investigated over the “use of council vehicle for personal gain”.

* Westminster City Council covertly filmed a locksmith following allegations of fraud.

* Durham County Council obtained authorisation to monitor car boot sales during an investigation into the sale of counterfeit goods.

Power in the hands of local authorities

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act allows for the interception of communications, acquisition and disclosure of data relating to communications, carrying-out of surveillance, use of covert intelligence sources and access to encrypted or password-protected data.

It can be evoked by public servants on the grounds of national security, and for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime, preventing disorder, public safety, protecting public health, or in the interests of the UK’s economic well-being. Councils were first granted use of the legislation in 2003.

Canadian privacy commissioner says biometric scanners nothing to worry about

Privacy commissioner Frank Work. Biometric scanners “no threat to privacy”

SUN MEDIA | Sep 4, 2008

By ANDREW HANON

Alberta’s information watchdog has given the green light for employers to use biometric scanning devices after ruling the technology does not violate individuals’ privacy.

Privacy commissioner Frank Work began probing the issue after two separate complaints from people who had been ordered by their bosses to use the instruments.

In Edmonton, an employee of the Empire Ballroom nightclub at West Edmonton Mall refused a management edict to sign in and out of work by using a biometric thumb scanner, which she complained was highly intrusive. She also claimed she was fired for refusing to do so.

In a similar case in Calgary, an extended care centre employee complained that their privacy was violated when they had to use a biometric hand scanner.

Both investigations determined that the devices do not violate privacy because they do not actually scan or retain thumb or hand prints. Rather, the systems collect measurements of each employees’ print and generates an ID number. The numbers are used to document when employees sign in and out of work.

Empire Ballroom general manager Sergio Maione said there’s “no way” the information in the device can be used for things like identity theft.

Customers don’t come into contact with the device. The nightclub has been using the system for about a year and Maione says it’s “eliminated a lot of paperwork.”

It also prevents employees from signing in other co-workers, he said. “We have 60 employees, and everyone else is OK with it,” he said.

Maione said it’s “absolutely untrue” that the employee was fired over thumb scans, but declined to say why she was terminated because it’s a private matter.

Army of child spies being trained to report neighbors for eco-crimes

Named and shamed: The Colchester Gazette printed a picture of a woman alleged to have dropped a cigarette butt

Army of spies: Children are being trained by councils to report neighbours who drop litter or commit ‘bin crimes’

Schoolchildren recruited by councils to spy on neighbours who commit ‘environmental crimes’

Daily Mail Reporter | Sep 6, 2008

Children are being offered money by councils to spy on neighbours and report petty offences such as ‘bin crimes’ and dog-fouling.

The youngsters are among 5,000 residents encouraged to photograph or video neighbours in the act of ‘environmental crimes’.

In some cases children as young as eight, are being bribed with rewards of £500 for passing on the names of neighbours or taking down their car registration numbers.

The Daily Telegraph found that one in six councils out of 240 contacted admitted to signing up the ‘environmental volunteers.’

Councils using the methods include Luton, Southwark, Birmingham, Blaenau Gwent, and Congleton, Cheshire.

A spokeswoman for Ealing council, west London, told the paper: ‘There are hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged eight to 10-years-old, who are trained to identify and report environmental crime issues such as graffiti and fly-tipping.’

Harlow council in Essex told them: ‘We currently have 25 Street Scene Champions who work with the council. They are all aged between 11 to 14.

‘They are encouraged to report the aftermath of enviro-crimes such as vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping etc. They do this via telephone or email direct to the council.’

Last week, Mail Online revealed that town hall snoopers armed with police powers are issuing ‘wanted’ photographs of suspected litterbugs.

Litter wardens given police-style accreditation by the Government are using cameras to snap alleged offenders. They are then shamed in local newspapers.

Colchester Borough Council in Essex said it would make it easier to find offenders and make them pay a £75 fine.

It also said the images would be stored to help identify repeat offenders.

Four ’street care officers’ can stop members of public, demand personal information, take photographs and issue fines under the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, details of which were revealed in the Daily Mail.

Hundreds of town hall workers and security guards have been given sweeping powers allowing them to hand out fines for a large number of offences, stop cars and seize alcohol from under-age drinkers.

Privacy campaigners have accused ministers of moving towards a ‘Stasi snooper state’ - a reference to the notorious former East German secret police.

There are also concerns that the Government is attempting ‘policing on the cheap’, by allowing civilians to carry out jobs previously reserved for officers.

Simon Reed, of the Police Federation, said: ‘This government seems intent on diluting the policing resilience in this country by handing out traditional policing powers to civilian staff.

The federation has concern about the presence of an ill-equipped and poorly trained second layer of law enforcement.

‘Not only does it cause members of the public confusion over who has what powers, but it undermines the special covenant between the police and the public who rightly expect policing functions to be performed by trained, independent and accountable officers.’

However a spokeswoman for the Local Government Association defended councils’ use of information from members of the public.

She told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Environmental volunteers are people who care passionately about their area and want to protect it from vandals, grafittists and fly-tippers.

‘These residents are not snoopers. They will help councils cut crime and make places cleaner, greener and safer.’

‘Environmental volunteers’ will be encouraged to spy on their neighbours

Councils are recruiting residents to report anyone who drops litter, fails to recycle their rubbish properly, or who allows their dog to foul the streets.

“Straight out of the East German Stasi’s copybook.”

Telegraph | Sep 2, 2008

By Lucy Cockcroft

Advertisements looking for people to sign up for the unpaid “environmental volunteer” jobs have been posted across the country in recent months.

Critics said the scheme is encouraging a Big Brother society where friends and neighbours will be encouraged to “snoop” on one another.

The recruitment drive follows news that the Home Office is granting police powers to council staff and private security guards, allowing then to hand out fines for low-scale offences and ask for personal details.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi’s copybook.

“With council tax so high, the last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish.”

Eastleigh council, in Hampshire, has said it wants residents to “monitor local environmental quality” to combat issues involving recycling and waste.

The local authority has already employed about a dozen people who answered an advert in a council newsletter which said: “Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area such as recycling, waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles”.

And the borough of Tower Hamlets, in east London, is advertising for similar roles within its environmental department, while other councils are expected to follow suit.

The volunteers are not asked directly to spy on neighbours, but they are encouraged not to ignore tip-offs.

A spokesman for Tower Hamlets said: “These are all people who care about the environment and they will be ambassadors for their area.

“They will be there to report graffiti, abandoned vehicles and local vandalism, but not to report on other individuals.”

“And they might go to an over-60s club and talk about recycling.”

The Local Government Association said: “Environment volunteers care passionately about their area and want to protect it.

“They are not snoopers. They will help councils cut crime and make places cleaner, greener and safer.”

Surveillance Society Sparks Psychosis

People think they are being watched…

Wired | Aug 29, 2008

By Kim Zetter

If you think someone is watching you, you’re probably right. But this doesn’t mean you’re not also crazy, according to psychiatrists who say that our surveillance and reality TV society is spawning a new kind of psychosis. They’re calling it the Truman Show delusion.

Psychiatrists in the U.S. and Britain say they’re seeing a growing number of psychotic patients who are paranoid that cameras are watching their every move.

Not sure why they might think this.

Others fear the World Wide Web is monitoring their lives or being used to transmit photographs or personal information.

The psychiatrists say such patients are often mirroring — albeit, to an extreme — what is occurring in the environment around them.

One way of looking at the delusions and hallucinations of the mentally ill is that they represent extreme cases of what the general population, or the merely neurotic, are worried about. Schizophrenics and other paranoid patients can take common fears - like identity theft because of information transmitted on the Internet, or the loss of privacy because of the prevalence of security cameras to fight crime - and magnify them, psychiatrists say.

Which would seem to suggest that these patients might not be so delusional after all.

‘Smart’ surveillance systems to be set up in Pennsylvania cities

Allegheny County Emergency Services chief Bob Full (back right) explains the Emergency Management Visualization System to Sen. Arlen Specter (second from right) Friday in the courtyard of the Allegheny County Courthouse, Downtown. James Knox/Tribune-Review

Beware: Allegheny County is planning to keep an electronic eye out for you.

“The cameras work best when everyone knows they are being watched.”

TRIBUNE-REVIEW | Aug 30, 2008

By Mark Houser

County Emergency Services Chief Bob Full said Friday that $750,000 in a pending federal appropriations bill would help pay for as many as 40 remote-controlled cameras to watch for crimes and monitor emergencies.

“We want to keep (criminals) guessing, but we want them to also know that we are watching them in critical areas,” he said.

Cameras could be moved as needed and would be monitored and controlled from the department’s Point Breeze headquarters, Full said. Images could be relayed to police officers responding to an incident and shown on their in-car computers, he said.

The planned system will include 64 cameras the county already has, as well as 64 sensors that sniff the air for traces of chemicals and radioactive materials.

The closed-circuit wireless surveillance network could include microphones that detect the sound of a gunshot and alert dispatchers, said Sen. Arlen Specter. He said images caught by cameras would be an aid in prosecuting crimes.

“A picture is worth a thousand lawyers,” Specter said.

In all, the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved more than $2 million for police surveillance in Pennsylvania. Besides the county money, the funding bill includes $250,000 to put 53 cameras in Pittsburgh, and similar projects for cameras in Allentown, Williamsport and York.

The bill must pass the full Senate and be signed into law before any money is available. The county has budgeted $250,000 for the project, Full said, and he is seeking additional money to expand the system’s capabilities.

Philadelphia is building a $10 million surveillance network with 250 cameras that the city hopes to have operating by the end of the year.

A 2006 pilot project there led to a 13 percent reduction in crime overall in the areas under surveillance, according to a Temple University study.

The cameras work best when everyone knows they are being watched, said the study’s author, Jerry Ratcliffe.

“If you make (criminals) move to another location, it’s often a worse location for committing crime, so that’s a good thing,” Ratcliffe said.

Full said the planned surveillance system, to be built by August Systems of Morgantown, W.Va., eventually could include security cameras owned by universities, PennDOT and private companies.

“It is scalable, and it can grow. And this is what we need to do in the future: We need to use technology as our best defense,” Full said.

Gustav Evacuees Get Barcode Bracelets

“They already have a bracelet with a barcode,” Captain Akin said. “They will walk through the scanner and it automatically loads into the computers. We have a list of where they need to go.”

Infowars | Aug 31, 2001

By COSHANDRA DILLARD

Tyler will be a hub for several thousand Hurricane Gustav evacuees as city officials enact its emergency response plan, and so far, it seems as though early relief efforts have been fluid.

Mayor Barbara Bass Saturday signed an official declaration of disaster/emergency condition during the second of two press conferences on Saturday. Mayor Bass said preparations are specifically geared towards the evacuations of special needs evacuees from Beaumont.

“We are fully prepared to respond to the emergency situation,” Mayor Bass said. “We have activated our emergency operations center as well as our reception center.”

The city’s reception center is located at Faulkner Park off of U.S. Highway 69, just north of Loop 49. A team of police, fire and medical officials are in place to greet and process evacuees, whether they come in official buses or in cars.

By 5 p.m. Saturday, the first four buses carrying about 155 people arrived in Tyler and headed directly to a shelter, Tyler Fire Department Captain Jeff Akin said.

Meanwhile at the reception center, about 12 people — a family of four and a group of eight — were the first to check in with officials before heading to a local shelter.

A small bus carrying about 15 evacuees arrived by 7 p.m. and about 1,000 more are expected to arrive by Monday, Akin said.

Tyler Fire Department Chief David Schlottach said following numerous conference calls with state officials, they are expecting to receive about 6,000 evacuees, although, he said he is uncertain if any will be coming from New Orleans.

“We really do have great communications with the state,” Chief Scholattach said. “Tyler is heavily involved in this.”

City officials said since the reception center will process thousands of people, they are implementing a system that will move people to shelters smoothly.

“We are really streamlining this process,” said Susan Guthrie, city of Tyler communications director.

Guthrie said evacuees coming in their own cars are asked to go directly to the reception center so they may keep up with the number of people they are receiving and to avoid having an overflow at some shelters.

Before leaving Beaumont, evacuees have already been entered into an intricate computer system that will keep track of them once they make it to Tyler.

“They already have a bracelet with a barcode,” Captain Akin said. “They will walk through the scanner and it automatically loads into the computers. We have a list of where they need to go.”
This system ensures that families can locate each other when coming to East Texas, Akin said.

“With Hurricane Katrina, we had no system. Families were calling wanting to know where family members were and we had no way of finding out. This way, we have a better way of tracking where people are going.”

Stan Lewis, with the Salvation Army, said they will provide food and water to evacuees at the reception center through Monday, before heading south. He said 150 volunteers will load up on about 20 disaster vehicles but he is unsure what city they will be deployed to.

“We could go to New Orleans or it could be Port Arthur,” Lewis said. “Until then, we are going to try to help these people.”

Bob Frazier, 66, was among one of the first evacuees off of the first bus at the reception center. Although anxious about the result of Hurricane Gustav, he said he was a little more at ease with the way state and local officials are handling the evacuation process. During Hurricane Rita, Frazier said he spent three days on a bus without food, water and bathroom breaks.

“Today we had plenty of water and it only took us about four hours to get here,” Frazier said as he snacked on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich provided by Salvation Army volunteers. “It wasn’t bad at all. I knew it would be different this time.”

Jason Hollowell, a Tyler Junior College paramedic student, volunteered at the center and said he was prepared to be there all night, bringing an extra change of clothes. He said he helped with relief efforts during Hurricane Katrina and he is also pleased that things are much more organized this time.

“It’s a week before and it’s already set up,” Hollowell said. “There are things we are doing in anticipation and preparation. With Katrina, the storm hit and we walked outside and there were 45 buses. We learned a lot about what not to do from three years ago.”

With the influx of evacuees, Chief Schlottach noted that East Texas drivers are to use precaution when traveling roads and highways.

“Traffic will be very congested because there are a great number of self evacuees coming up the highway,” he said. “I just advise citizens to bear with it because their fellow Texans are trying to get out of harm’s way.”

Chief Schottach said those interested in volunteering can call 211 to find out ways to help with relief efforts.

With the signing of the declaration and activation of the emergency management plan, Mayor Bass said the city will now be eligible to request reimbursement from federal funds for providing shelter and relief to evacuees.

Automated air-traffic network developed for robo-planes

US Predator drones will be controlled by the network as they spy on Americans. Would also be good for flying cars.

Related

• Unmanned spy planes to police Britain
• Spy-in-the-sky drone sets sights on Miami
• Police Secrecy Behind Unmanned Aircraft Test
• France uses flying spy drones to monitor citizens

The Register | Aug 29, 2008

By Lewis Page

Good news today for people who like flying cars or flying robots, but clouds on the horizon for professional pilots and air-traffic controllers. Trials by US aerospace colossus Lockheed have shown that lightweight, distributed, automated systems can easily deconflict pilotless aircraft operating in crowded airspace.

Lockheed boffins from the globocorp’s Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) arm announced their success this week. The kit in question is called Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Airspace Management System (UAMS), and it has now proven itself in trials with aerial robots near Pittsburgh.

“The successful use of UAMS on in-flight UAVs caps three years of program development,” said David Van Brackle, ATL’s top auto-air-traffic brain.

“Our work will improve safety and mission success for future UAV systems and for the Warfighters who depend upon them.”

The UAMS project is funded by the US Army, which already issues its ground combat units with many small UAVs for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. However, air-traffic conflicts often mean that these aircraft can’t be used as often as the soldiers would like.

On the face of it, deconfliction of unpiloted aircraft should be relatively simple in the modern era. GPS satnav is a negligible capability, present in almost every UAV, and it can tell an aircraft where it is to within a few metres.

Up-to-date digital networking can thus create an accurate 3D picture in real time of all the planes and what they’re doing, and follow simple rules to direct them out of each other’s way. Even if the decisions are still made by humans and communicated by voice, the greater accuracy and faster update rate of networked GPS (as compared to radar) allows more aircraft to be in a given amount of airpspace.

There are, in fact, steps being taken in America to use this sort of kit for normal manned aviation in place of centralised radar control - facing strong opposition, as one might expect, from air-traffic controllers’ unions. But the US Army, operating unmanned aircraft in a warzone or a military exercise area, can largely disregard civil regs.

Hence UAMS, envisaged by the Army as a “battalion echelon system” - that is, one which is fairly lightweight and easily deployed by smaller ground units, and which requires little manpower. UAMS uses a ground-based server and intelligent software agents aboard the aircraft to be managed, and also offers onboard “see and avoid” sensors to deal with intruders which aren’t hooked up to the UAMS net. According to Lockheed ATL, the system can distribute most of the work to the airborne programs, handle it mainly on the server, or combine the two approaches flexibly.

So now US Army ground formations - at least in airspace free of manned aircraft - can send up as many robo-craft as they like, happy in the knowledge that they will deconflict themselves automatically and suffer no collisions. That’s all good news for soldiers wanting to use their rapidly proliferating skydroids more easily.

It’s also, perhaps, good news for other kinds of pilotless aircraft - such as the long-anticipated flying cars of the future. One of the most serious barriers to everybody having an aerial car is the fact that normal air-traffic systems could never cope with such numbers. Another problem is that handling an aircraft under tight ground control - as is necessary in crowded airspace and/or cloudy weather - is a highly involved task, calling for advanced skills and qualifications on the part of a human pilot. Not many ordinary people would have the necessary time, money and aptitude to acquire such skills; fewer still would be rich enough to hire instrument-qualified chauffeur pilots. Even a basic private pilot’s licence, allowing flights only in good weather and open skies, is a significantly bigger cost and time hurdle than a driver’s licence.

Thus, a flying car for ordinary consumers would in effect have to be an aerial passenger-carrying robot, able to pilot itself - much like the latest UAVs of today, which can fly an entire mission including takeoff and landing without any remote piloting by humans. But aerial cars would also have to work with a high-capacity, affordable, probably distributed automatic air traffic networks; ones rather like UAMS, in fact.
Of course, there are many other obstacles standing in the way of flying cars - scepticism, cost, noise, takeoff run, genuine ability to drive on roads as well as fly. It will also be a long road from today’s UAMS to automated urban air-traffic networks as ubiquitous as traffic lights; a road that may well never be travelled.

But at least it’s been shown to be possible. And, while automated civil flying cars remain far-fetched, automated military aircraft are already a reality.

“Child Protection” database will be used to prosecute children

“Every Child Matters” database slammed as data mining

Troubled kids’ pasts open to investigators

Last week the government said it was storing the genetic profiles of 40,000 innocent children in the National DNA Database.

The Register | Aug 26, 2008

By Chris Williams

A new database purporting to help protect vulnerable children could be used by authorities to gather evidence against them for criminal prosecutions, it has emerged.

The ContactPoint database is being promoted as a tool to ease cooperation between schools, social services and other authorites who hold information on kids. The £224m scheme is part of the government’s “Every Child Matters” initiative, launched in 2003 in the wake of the inquiry into the murder of Victoria Climbié, whose abuse was repeatedly overlooked by authorities.

But now The Telegraph reports that ContactPoint will also serve as an investigative data mine until young people reach their 24th birthday. Guidelines on the databases’ applications say archives will be available “for the prevention or detection of crime” and “for the prosecution of offenders”.

The database will not include specific case information, but will record if a child has contact with police and drug workers, for example. This has prompted fears from civil liberties groups it will be used to insinuate a troubled past in court. No2ID’s Phil Booth said: “Parents should know that this is not for the protection of their children, it could be used to prosecute them. This is a serious step on from what little has been told to the public.”

An estimated 330,000 people will have access to ContactPoint, which government contractor CapGemini will open for business this autumn. Its launch was delayed by the inquiry into repeated data losses by HMRC and other government bodies.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families defended the scheme. “To access ContactPoint for the purposes of prevention or detection of crime or for the prosecution of offenders, police would have to make a special request directly to the Secretary of State or Local Authority and make a case for disclosure,” it said.

Last week the government said it was storing the genetic profiles of 40,000 innocent children in the National DNA Database.