In general terms registers and the process of registration are normally seen as a neutral mechanism for aiding organisations to complete their work as efficiently as possible. They are seen as little more than part of the recorded ‘memory’ of an organisation. In the UK we are used to the routine registration of births, deaths and marriages, of electoral registers confirming who has the right to vote, and of census registers every ten years that started in 1801. We are aware of land registries recording land ownership and school attendance registers that confirm which children are in school and which are not. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, nurses, social workers, child minders and a host of other professionals and practitioners are all ‘registered’ to the benefit of their clients and patients. Registers may, however, take on a more sinister form. In the 1940s the

US Supreme Court declared that ‘champions of freedom for the individual have always vigorously opposed burdensome registration systems’ which can lead to ‘tyranny and intimidation’ (Hines v Davidowitz 312 US 52 70-71 (1941)). In the mid-1980s a British court was asked to adjudicate on whether

or not a local authority was right to include personal details about a child’s sexual abuse and the adults who may have been responsible on a child protection register. The judge, Mr Justice Waite, was highly critical of the authority’s decision. He agreed that registers had some positives but ‘nevertheless it was a blacklist and as such had a dangerous potential as an instrument of injustice and oppression’ (‘Dangerous potential of child abuse register as instrument of injustice’, The Times Law Report 27 February 1989; R v Norfolk County, ex parte M [1989] 3 WLR 502; see also Martin 1989). What could the US Supreme Court and the UK’s Justice Waite mean when

they warned of registers possibly leading to ‘tyranny and intimidation’ or as having ‘dangerous potential as … instrument(s) of injustice and oppression’? Could registers be something we should feel less ‘comfortable’ about and even something to be considered as ‘chilling’ and to be resisted? What would a history of the register look like?