Why are child Location Based Services exempt from the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Bill ?
Archrights are naturally frustrated by the lack of regulation of child (or vulnerable adult) mobile phone Location Based Services in the Protecting Vulnerable Groups Bill.
DfES Under-Secretary, Parmjit Dhanda is far too smugly complacent in claiming that
it is a new sector and we would need to consult on and assess the risk presented by individuals working in those services before looking to amend the definition of regulated activity
Just what has the Government been doing for the last 3 years, since we first asked questions about services like ChildLocate, aimed specifically at tracking children ?
What has the Mobile Phone Industry Regulator i.e. Ofcom, who are supposed to look after the best interests of consumers, done about this ?
The answer, to both questions appears to be - nothing.
Given the millions of other people who will be subjected to the Independent Barring Board centralised database bureaucracy, what justification can there be for not including the staff working at Mobile Phone Location Based Services companies, with access to the locations of many children away from home, and with the ability to send them messages pretending to be from their parents i.e. ideal jobs for kidnappers and child molesters ?