24th October 2009
Home Office Climbs Down on DNA Database
Mark Hanson
The UK Government has made a significant climbdown regarding the National DNA Database, yet there is still cause for concern.
The Home Office announced this week that it was dropping its plans to hold the DNA profiles of innocent people for up to 12 years, amid great concern from civil liberty campaigners, including Rabel, and a fear on the part of the Home Office that the Lords would end up scuppering the whole policing and crime Bill as it passed through their House.
Despite this victory, there are some alarming signs that the Government will try to push through these provisions again during the next session of Parliament. It is a temporary reprieve, not a change in policy.
The evidence that the government continues to push for almost universal DNA retention is backed up by the Home Office’s current guidelines to the police that they should continue to take DNA samples and add profiles to the database.
This comes amid growing scepticism about the validity of such retention, with official statistics showing that despite the database burgeoning to a size which means almost 1 in every 10 UK citizens is branded a potential criminal, the number of cases solved by DNA evidence actually fell by 10,000 in the past two years.
That each one of us, many with no criminal links whatsoever, knows at least one person who is on the DNA database, is not a comforting thought. DNA can be faked, DNA can be used to screen people for employment, health insurance and suitability as candidates for government etc.etc. These uses are not legal, yet they are there. The government’s continuing insistence on indiscriminate DNA retention is, likewise, not legal, yet is happening.
