By Andy McCue, 5 September 2007 15:14
NEWS
A senior judge has called for a universal national DNA database containing the details of every UK citizen and visitor to the country.
In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme Lord Justice Ledley called the situation with the existing DNA database "indefensible" because of the numbers of innocent people acquitted and the disproportionately high number of ethnic minorities stored on it.
The national DNA database contains the samples of around four million people, including more than 100,000 adults and 24,000 people under 17 years of age who have been arrested but never convicted of a crime.
Everyone arrested in England and Wales has their DNA sample taken and stored on the database forever, regardless of whether they are prosecuted or convicted.
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But Ledley said it would be "ridiculous" and a "disaster" to go backwards by wiping the details of innocent people on the DNA database.
He told the BBC: "Going forwards has very serious but, I think, manageable implications. It means that everybody, guilty or innocent, should expect their DNA to be on file for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention."
The judge said this should include visitors to the UK as well, with everyone being forced to give a DNA sample as they pass through passport control.
He said: "If you're going to have a database like this it has to be universal otherwise you've got a category that slips through the net."
Speaking on the same programme the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said there are risks of errors, mistakes and mix-ups with such a massive database and serious consequences as a result.
He said: "We have to think very long and very hard before going down the road of a universal DNA database. This approach can be very intrusive and it raises fundamental questions about how much the police and the state know about us. There are some immense practical issues as well as the civil liberties and data protection issues."
The government is currently conducting a review of the DNA database, which is due to be completed by next February but Home Office minister Tony McNulty said there are no plans "now or in the foreseeable future" for a universal DNA database in the UK.
But Dr Helen Wallace, director of campaign group GeneWatch, said a compulsory national DNA database would be an "extraordinarily expensive and ineffective" way to tackle crime.
She said in a statement: "The recent massive expansion of the database has not increased the likelihood of solving crimes, because so many people being added to it are not criminals. Existing legislation has already gone too far. Time limits on how long DNA samples and police records can be kept should be reintroduced."
Comments
There are 20 comments. Join the discussion
1. Malcolm Cowen
If it's everyone that is included, then it's a proposal to be considered, but how do you propose the process all the visitors who walk across the border from the Irish Republic. Much of the border isn't even marked, let alone policed.
Or for that matter, all the small boats that sail around various EU waters stopping at variouis small ports.
Or the casual one day visitor by Eurostar.
We'll end up with more intrusive controls than the USA.
2. anonymous
That's one way to kill off the tourist trade and discourage businesses from setting up in the UK. What about crews on ships and aircraft: them too? Do the ships have to dock at a port, or just pass through territorial waters?
3. Haydn Rees
Has this judge never heard of scope creep?
I think the Police are a really good bell weather for how comfortable we should be about how data is used. They understand scope creep; if you can argue a good reason for the extension to the use this data is put, you can argue a bad reason.
Obviously their DNA needs to be discounted from crime scenes, right? After every police officer in the UK has volunteered to have their DNA on the database, we'll talk about the rest of us.
4. Roger Huffadine
The DNA database is a disaster waiting to happen. Just because it says DNA, is 'scientific' & says Database people seem to accept it as a "good thing". The fact that it can & will be used by the State to control, track and ultimately cleanse the population seems to escape most people's imagination. Once it is discovered that a certain gene grouping in a male together with a certain gene grouping in a female produces certain socially undesirable offspring we will have a form of compulsory breeding control. Other more serious ethnic cleansing scenarios also spring to mind. Just because some folk ?trust? the government of today doesn't mean that we should enact legislation to give future generations the option of push button social engineering.
5. David Fletcher
WOW
That would really work wonders for the British tourism industry. Which is one of the few industries we've still got these days.
And didn't I hear that a little place called Australia is crying out for skilled people to emigrate there? How do I apply?
6. Mikal Dunne
What's the point? DNA just shows someone has been somewhere. It doesn't prove a criminal act has been committed. This judge has been watching too much CSI.
7. Michael Fischer
A further step towards hounding the average citizen. Aside from the billions of pounds of overrun this project would generate, we would suddenly find a lot more enforcement of petty 'disorder' by post ... you hand a pound coin to a begger, and a 100 pound fine posted to you for encouraging begging. Someone steals a bit of paper from your bin for indentity theft, tosses it, and a 100 pound fine is mailed for littering. Right.
8. Mr. Smith
I don’t think anybody would disagree with Lord Justice Ledley’s opinion that a national DNA database would help solve crime. Of course it would, if you considered everyone to be a potential criminal until they are eliminated from the crime.
But what is the real sociological cost of making everybody a “potential criminal”?
How long will it be before “ordinary” law abiding folk, who are passionate about genuinely making the UK a safe place to live and raise a family, begin to resent being bullied and insulted by a government that is becoming far too powerful and which autonomously creates more and more petty laws that do nothing but degrade the traditions and social values of Britons.
Do we trust the leaders of our country? Do we really intend to give up our rights to maintain a true democracy? Will it be too late, by the time we wake up to sinister elements of governmental control which want to remove our right to remain anonymous in political matters?
It worries me, it should be worrying everyone else, but apparently apathy reigns king. Maybe one day we will ask, “What ever happened to people power”?
9. anonymous
I am in full agreement with a national DNA database! Only those with something to hide should worry. All immigrants to the U.K. should also have their DNA taken. Stuff the Human Right Act if it gets in the way.
10. Jay C
I fear this master of puppets called the UK
go with this & your going against freedom & the reason we don't live in iraq
11. Stuart Fawcett
Is not the biggest deterrent to committing crime the fear of being caught?
With some high profile crimes taking many thousands of police hours searching for suspects, would this not also speed up investigations.
The issue here seems to be the freedom to be unknown Vs reducing the likelihood of crime occurring from untraceable people.
12. Martin Anderson
We are rapidly providing the state with the tools for a comprehensive police state. Whether we trust the current government is not the issue.
No future government is likely to relinquish the sort of power this will give them. A future government is highly likely to misuse them.
It is almost a weekly occurrence now that something that was one considered a traditional liberty is removed. The justification is always that it makes something easier better or whatever.
The reality is that we are slowly destroying the very basis of our society.
13. Winston Smith
Ok Lord Justice Ledley, I'll have my DNA taken and held on database, along with my Bar Code Tatoo, surgically inserted RFID tag, and the electronic tag around my ankle. Then, in the event that I might commit a crime/thoughtcrime, I'll be easier to find and re-educate. But of course, this'll only happen after I've stood in the queue behind you!
Who said Orwell wasn't prophectic?! Happy 1984!
14. Captain_Ovlov
This is just one more example of the ever-extending arms of repressive and petty-minded government. Since the 1980s, the UK has steadily become a more and more unpleasant place to live, with 24-hour constant surveillance of citizens.
Along with that, governments of both persuasions have become increasingly cynical and untrustworthy. The police show spectacular incompetence, and spend more time (and effort) on form-filling, prosecuting easy results (assault with a sausage, for heaven's sake), and less time on tackling real crime.
Even when criminals are prosecuted, some idiotic, superannuated and sclerotic Judge lets them off with an admonition... and the prisons are overflowing.
Phrases like "whelk stalls" and "piss-ups in breweries" come to mind.
Would the last UK citizen leaving the country please switch out the light?
15. Anonymous of Middle Earth
c'mon Anonymous of North Wales - if you REALLY support the idea at least give your name
16. Many Grands Nephew of Joseph Galloway
So the judge thinks the existing DNA database is "indefensible" because of the numbers of innocent people acquitted?
In the States, a lot of folks are pretty happy when innocent people acquitted. It is when the guilty go free that we get cheesed. I would also, as does the one commenter, be pretty appalled if this went through as it makes everyone guilty until proven innocent and I will have to remember to look out for sharp objects on any future visits to the old country.
Another commenter was bewailing the downfall of your democracy, but there is a DIY kit available for setting up a republic which is even better. Feel free to copy the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States as a template.
I had a relative that took a shot at it too, but he had to run back home to Uncle Georgie and the rest of the Tories.
17. GALLEY SLAVE#41
Next step will be bar code on neck at birth.
Maybe these dumb buggers should remember that they work for US not us for THEM.
18. Theodore Odeluga
Following on from Roger Huffadine's comment about social engineering, the fact that the current DNA database (according to the Judge himself proposing the scheme) already has an unfairly disproportionate number of black men on it, speaking as a black man, I think we can already see the warning signs of just which direction a compulsory national system could take.
19. Jeremy Wickins
Sorry for the late reply! First of all, there is a typo - it is Lord Justice Sedley, not Ledley. Secondly, I'm astounded by his assertion, because he really is a judge that stands up for human rights, civil liberties, and proper justice. The only way I can see his argument going is this: "the DNA database exists, but it only has people who have been in the hands of the police on it. Lots of those people are never charged, or are acquitted, but their DNA never comes off the database. This means that these people are in a worse off position than those other people who have never been charged with anything but have never been in police hands (yet!). Therefore, the only way to make the system fair is to bring everyone into the same position, i.e. on the database." If this is the basis of the argument, one wonders whether he is "doing a Denning" and starting to go gaga before the end of his time on the bench, since the logical conclusion is not "put everyone on", but "take the unconvicted ones off".
20. Ruth
Yes, taking the innocent people off the DNA db would be the LOGICAL step. However, then the control freaks in power would feel they had given up part of their power. I'll be on the queue too, - after Justice Sedley & anonymous of north wales of course!