Written question asked by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Wednesday, 2 December 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 7 December 2009. It was answered by Baroness Primarolo (Labour) on Monday, 14 December 2009 on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Children: Databases

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families whether ContactPoint users are trained in the detection and removal of malware.

Answer: ContactPoint users will be able to access ContactPoint only from computers that are part of an accredited system. This accreditation includes a requirement that systematic processes and software tools are in place to report incidents and to detect malware and spyware.Most software tools are automated and do not require intervention from the users in order to detect malware or spyware. Training users to respond to malware detection is part of the accrediting organisation's normal responsibility.Removing malware is a highly-skilled task requiring system-level access rights that most ContactPoint users will not possess. Commercial best practice is that malware removal is carried out by dedicated IT support teams.

Secondary information