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The government's proposal to create a database containing basic information about all children could lead to many parents being faced with false allegations of child abuse, a leading data protection solicitor has warned.

Speaking to Community Care, Stewart Room, head of data protection at the law firm Rowe Cohen, said that the proposed system to trigger off child protection inquiries was too sensitive.

The system involves professionals who have a concern about a child putting a flag on their file, allowing concerns to be highlighted without actually describing what they are. If a child has more than one flag, professionals will contact each other to discuss their concerns.


"The trigger mechanism is so sensitive that two flags will cause some type of investigation," said Room.

He added that the database, which will cover all children, would be "too big" and predicted there would be "massive inaccuracies" in the information it contained.