Big Brother to Watch Dutch

This gives a new definition to Cradle-to-Grave coverage:

The Dutch government plans to open an electronic file on every child at birth to help spot and protect troubled children of the future.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2007, all citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database--including health, education, family and police records--the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

As a privacy safeguard, no single person or agency will be able to access all contents of a file. But organizations can raise "red flags" in the dossier to caution other agencies about problems, ministry spokesman Jan Brouwer said.

Until now, schools and police have been unable to communicate about truancy records and criminality, which often are linked.

That is quite a disturbing concept. Who will determine what goes in the file? Who will have access to the files? Will the citizen be able to see their files? How will the Dutch government protect the data from hackers? And what "red flags" will be raised by officials in the particular ministries?

The only red flag I see associated with this proposal is the continued expansion of a statist mentality in Western Europe.