Monday, October 30, 2006

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

After emailing CILIP, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, over concerns on how...

a) Biometric data is collected from children with/without informed parental consent and confirm security of databases holding children's information.

b) Access to reports on reading habits on our youth by ethnicity, gender and age is made open to parents. Parents should be aware of who has access to their child's reading habits.

c) Learning resources and reading materials can be restricted in school libraries by age, gender ethnicity. From a leading schools library retailer's website:

"...we are able to provide detailed statistics and monitor use of the library by gender, year group, ethnicity and individual progress in numbers of books borrowed"

d) Children are not aware that their reading habits are monitored/reported on to a third party and that other people can see what they are reading/books /learning resources are taken out.

The Data Protection Act surely has implications here.

CILIP were very responsive initially passing my concerns on to the relevant person/s - but I have waited 2 months for their view on the above points.

Our children should grow up knowing that their reading habits are monitored and analysied (!?)

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