7th May 2009
Home Secretary Says DNA Database Still Going Strong
Mark Hanson
The Home Office has now released a consultation paper outlining it’s proposals for the UK DNA Database, in answer to the most scathing judgement from the European Court of Human Rights which condemned the Government’s current policy.
The proposals that the Home Office intends to follow include tiers of seriousness, with suspects arrested (but never charged) for the most extreme cases having their DNA profiles stored for 12 years, whilst others would have their profiles stored for 6 years.
It is intolerable in a democratic country for there to be an assumption of future guilt if suspected in current investigations, when the suspicion may be founded on little or disputed evidence.
The Home Office has presented these proposals due to the fact that the current system is in contradiction of European law, yet as the proposals stand, they seem to give the minimal amount of ground as possible to the ruling.
A bright star in this is that the actual DNA samples will be destroyed, with only the profiles retained. Yet that is but a small glimmer.
The need to fight crime is real, and that DNA records can help in this is beyond dispute, yet again and again, in trying to uphold British values the Government embarks on destroying those very values.
The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is the foundation of British law. These proposals reverse that.
Even the British pioneer of DNA fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, is “disappointed” by this response by the government.
DNA is an intimate detail on someone’s life, open to swathes of abuse by both commercial and more totalitarian interests. To be on the database, you should have had committed a serious crime and been convicted in court, not merely been under suspicion.
