Terri Dowty spent the last 10 years as director of Action on Rights for Children (ARCH) and has several successful campaigns under her belt, including the abolition of the intrusive and dangerous national children’s database, Contactpoint.
A qualified counsellor, Terri has lectured and written widely on children’s rights, and co-authored both the well-known ‘Database State’ report for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, and the report for the Information Commissioner, ‘Children’s Databases: safety and privacy’.
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Phil Booth coordinated the NO2ID campaign (along with Guy Herbert, who coined the term ‘Database State’) from 2004 to 2011, building an active and influential UK-wide grass roots network campaigning on a range of
database state issues – including medical privacy, fingerprinting in schools, unlawful DNA retention – ultimately defeating the Home Office’s National Identity Scheme in 2010.
Previously, Phil lectured and worked as a public sculptor (assisting Sebastien Boyesen) before starting his first digital media company with Rob Morgan in 1994, later joining forces with Alex Boyesen and friends in one of the UK’s first de facto ‘web companies’, called Flabberghasted. He joined the BBC’s Digital Media Education department in ‘98, helping out BBC Schools Online in various ways through its early years.
In the early 2000s, working with children’s charity the Who Cares? Trust, Phil helped conceive, prototype and develop CareZone – a safe online space for looked after children. The pilot phase of CareZone in several Local Authorities was funded in 2002 by DoH, DfES, other central government funding* and corporate sponsorship, and the full scheme was made available to all UK Local Authorities, including in Northern Ireland & Scotland, in 2003/4.
[*CareZone received funding from the UK Treasury ‘Capital Modernisation Fund’ when Gordon Brown was Chancellor; the CZ demonstrator/pilot was launched at Church House by then Minister for Health and Home Secretary-to-be, Jacqui Smith.]
Unfortunately: ‘Vulnerable children lose vital online link‘ – The Guardian, 10 October 2006.