A £224m government database holding the records of all 11 million children in England has been closed down.
ContactPoint was set up by the previous Labour government in the wake of the Victoria Climbie child abuse scandal to improve child protection.
Launched last year, it held the names, ages and addresses of all under-18s on a central computerised database, along with the contact details of their parents, schools and GPs.
Hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers and social workers had access to the register to help co-ordinate who was working with children.
The controversial system was beset by delays, technical problems and fears over security. The coalition government pledged to shut it down, saying it was "disproportionate and unjustifiable".
The database is being destroyed "using government-approved security standards and processes", according to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
Announcing ContactPoint's closure last month, the children's minister, Tim Loughton, said he recognised the problem that the previous administration was trying to remedy and was looking at a new national service focusing on helping people find out who is working, or has worked, with a child in another authority area.
The closure follows a report from the National DNA Database Ethics Group, which says that police databases running alongisde the DNA database should be clearly definted, with robust oversight and standards. "The existence of these databases raises a risk of extending the scope of DNA data collected beyond criminal justice purposes," says the group's annual report.
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
