IT WAS the failed mortgage application that killed my trust in databases. My credit record was flawless, I thought — until the information-processing company blamed me for a neighbour’s missed MasterCard payments. By sending off £2 for a personal credit report, I discovered the shocking fecklessness of a woman I’d previously smiled at in the street. A similar surname had penalised me for her extravagances.

Thanks to the Data Protection Act, I could unravel the error and implore the company to rethink. But what if such a mistake had occurred on one of the many official databases that play an increasingly powerful role in our lives? Inaccurate data stored by the NHS or the Inland Revenue could lose us jobs or blight our reputations. Last week it emerged that the Criminal Records Bureau has falsely accused 193 job applicants of having criminal convictions. An earlier study of the Police National Computer found that 85 per cent of Metropolitan Police records were wrong in some way.

The issue has taken on a new urgency, not simply over calls for a national identity card, but because of government plans to track the nation’s children. Under the Children Bill, now being debated in Parliament, an electronic database will keep a record of every child. The Government, keen to avoid another child-neglect scandal, wants agencies that come in contact

with children to use it to “flag up” any concerns. Schools, doctors, the police and private-sector bodies will alert the system to such warning signals as low birth weight, poor exam results and a parent’s depression or addiction. Two such “flags” on a child’s record may trigger an investigation.

A national children’s database has troubling implications, and not just for those people who are haunted for life by mistakes or unsubstantiated rumour. A few days ago a conference at the London School of Economics heard from children’s rights campaigners and a Barnardo’s representative that such a database may increase children’s risk of abuse. There are no clear limits on who will have access to the data; and if the system were hacked it could, in the words of one speaker, become a “paedophile’s address book”.

Ministers are often dazzled by technology, without considering its practical limitations, and “information-sharing” is Whitehall’s latest panacea. But before we let millions of strangers map out our children’s lives electronically, we ought to know how their personal data will be safeguarded. Once the computer decides what sort of person your child is, the label is likely to stick.

THE OFFENSIVE CENSORSHIP SCENE

SHOULD the “orgasm” scene have been cut from When Harry Met Sally? What about an affectionate hug by two men in the film Big Daddy? A prurient new DVD player just released by RCA is enraging leading Hollywood directors. It incorporates ClearPlay software that cuts out everything from “crude sexual content” to “vain references” to God. ClearPlay says its technology is “about choice”.

But what about the directors’ choice of how their movies should be edited? Good luck to Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and other directors in their court battle to stop such nannyism. No one has to watch their films — so why should the law let DVD content-filters rewrite them?

DAVID ROWAN