Michael Gove MP (Conservative) MP for Surrey Heath.

Children's Digital Rights

Schools Secretary Michael Gove today told the Daily Telegraph Conservatives would scrap controversial ContactPoint child database 28 Sepember 2008

"ContactPoint can never be secure. We are taking this action because we are determined to protect vulnerable children from abuse, ConactPoint would increase that risk. The government has proved that it cannot be trusted to set up large databases, and cannot promise that inappropriate people would not be able to access the database. It would be irresponsible to implement something that is such a danger to our children. After all the problems we have with this government losing sensitive data we need to do things differently. We need to invest in people. Strengthening relationships, not building another Big Brother system."

Identity cards

Signed Early Day Motion 263 Identity Cards 06 June 2005

That this House believes that a convincing case for the introduction of compulsory biometric identity cards and a national database has not been made, that the risks involved far outweigh any discernible benefit, that the introduction of identity cards will fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state, diminish personal privacy and threaten civil liberties, that the present proposals do not provide properly costed, proportionate or effective solutions to the problems they are claimed to solve; and calls upon the Government to shelve plans for their introduction.

Open Source Software

Signed Early Day Motion 179 Software in Schools 21 November 2006

That this House congratulates the Open University and other schools, colleges and universities for utilising free and open source software to deliver cost-effective educational benefit not just for their own institutions but also the wider community; and expresses concern that Becta and the Department for Education and Skills, through the use of outdated purchasing frameworks, are effectively denying schools the option of benefiting from both free and open source software and the value and experience small and medium ICT companies could bring to the schools market.

Electronic Voting

The former MP Nick Hawkins who Michael Gove took over from spoke out against Electronic Voting.

Links

News

2008-09-28 - The Telegraph - Conservatives would scrap controversial ContactPoint child database: Author: Andrew Pierce; Summary: Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove said "ContactPoint can never be secure. We are taking this action because we are determined to protect vulnerable children from abuse, ConactPoint would increase that risk. The government has proved that it cannot be trusted to set up large databases, and cannot promise that inappropriate people would not be able to access the database. It would be irresponsible to implement something that is such a danger to our children. After all the problems we have with this government losing sensitive data we need to do things differently. We need to invest in people. Strengthening relationships, not building another Big Brother system."