Affiliations: [a] TILT – Tilburg Insitute for Law, Technology, and
Society, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands | [b] Research fellow, Scientific Council for Government
Policy, 4-5, Lange Vijverberg, P.O. Box 20004, 2500 EA The Hague, The
Netherlands | [c] Erasmus University, Philosophy Department, P.O. box
1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Dr. Simone van der Hof, Associate
professor Regulation of ICTs, Tilburg University, TILT – Tilburg Insitute for
Law, Technology, and Society, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Tel.: +31 6 44644759 (or +13 466 8199); E-mail: hof@uvt.nl
Abstract: At the end of 2009, the Electronic Child Record (ECR) must replace
all paper records in Dutch youth healthcare, i.e. digital dossiers containing
health and psycho-social data on children aged 0–19. At the same time, society
demands a more effective youth-care system, due to several family tragedies
that gave rise to high media attention as well as growing problems with
high-risk youth. These developments form the impetus for fundamental changes in
youth care in respect of the relationship between children and youth-care
professionals, connectivity of information systems, transparency (or rather
opacity) of organisations and information systems, and the construction and use
of children's identities. The ECR seems to have acquired a dynamic of its own
and is steadily moving forward to becoming embedded in an ever more
sophisticated system of controlling the socio-psychological and physical
development of youngsters-at-risk. Hence, the goals of the ECR may be gradually
shifting from achieving more efficiency vis-à-vis social sorting and
risk-management systems. This development has side effects that should be
addressed by policy makers to truly promote the interests of children and
citizens more generally.
Keywords: Digital records, youth care, connectivity, identity, profiling, transparency
