| George Orwell, call your office. |
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The Dutch government plans to open an electronic file on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future. Beginning Jan. 1, 2007, all citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database - including health, education, family and police records - the health ministry said Tuesday. | Why don't they just tatoo a bar code on the kids neck and be done with it? |
As a privacy safeguard, no single person or agency will be able to access all contents of a file. But organizations can raise "red flags" in the dossier to caution other agencies about problems, ministry spokesman Jan Brouwer said.
| Can Rantburg get access? There's a few dossiers on which I'd like to put red flags. |
The intention is to protect troubled children, Brouwer said. Until now, schools and police have been unable to communicate with each other about truancy records and criminality, which are often linked.
"Child protection services will say, 'Hey, there's a warning flag from the police. There's another one from school. There's another one from the doctor," Brouwer said. "Something must be going on and it's time to call the parents in for a meeting." | "As a wise woman once said, it takes a village to raise a child" |
Every child will get a Citizens Service Number, making it easier to keep track of children with problems even when their families move, said Secretary of Health Clemence Ross. "Safety, guidance, education and supervision are incredibly important for the development of children," Ross said. All Dutch births are currently registered with local authorities. |