A quarter of major Government databases are fundamentally flawed and almost certainly break the human rights or data protection laws, say researchers.
Britain's "database state" puts children at risk and wastes billions of pounds a year, according to a report for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.
Of 46 databases studied, 11 - including a planned index of all children in England - should be axed, it said.
Significant problems were identified in a further 29 databases, which were recommended for independent review, while only six won the green light as being necessary and legal.
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The privacy experts behind the report, commissioned after HM Revenue and Customs lost two discs containing a copy of the entire child benefit database in 2007, called for urgent "radical" change in the public-sector culture and for systems that put people first.
But they warned that politicians and senior civil servants view the personal data issue as "career-threatening and toxic" and do not want to get involved.
