Not me for suggesting in an update this morning that the Department of Education (Diknas) had taken down the link giving access to the names of 32,842,785 Indonesian school students. Although, come to think of it, perhaps I should have been less trusting in an email I opened which read "diknas has already removed the addresses it seems."Wrong! I opened the page at "14/10/2008 pk.16:05:53" when I got home.
And look at the staggering number of students enumerated. That's 22,656,748 in elementary school, 6,213618 in junior high and 2,384,021 in senior high, plus 1,582,478 in vocational schools, generally senior high. There are a further 5,920 etceteras, which could be a variety of schools, although judging from the distribution of the schools, I don't think are International.
A friend has commented that he has found his children listed, but I won't ask him how he got hold of the URL. I could pass it on to those who I trust, but I'm not even sure about the wisdom of that.
Once something like this escapes, then who knows what damage this might cause? I only suggested the risk of kidnapping. Others now suggest that paedophiles would be interested.
The following is an email from the International Schools Review, based in Canada.
In Canada this would be illegal. All individuals, and particularly children, are protected under the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. It is illegal to publish children's names, photos, contact information etc. without explicit parental permission.
Is it possible to contact a children's international organization to inform them of this situation? This is a terrible invasion of child privacy and a certain way to invite pedophiles into the homes of the named Indonesian children.
How can we be of assistance at ISR? We can certainly post a warning but I wonder how we can whistle blow without alerting deviants as to the whereabouts of the Dipnas site?
And therein lies the dilemma. We need to publicise the fact that nigh on 33 million school children are at potential risk because of the crass stupidity of the Indonesian government's Department of Education.
Action needs to be taken also to ensure that something like this never happens again. To my knowledge, there is no "Freedom of Information and Privacy Act" in Indonesia. If there is, then obviously there are grounds for legal action.
If there isn't, then there are solid grounds for a campaign to get one.
The picture above is from the Dipshit's site.
