Judge calls for "universal" national DNA database

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."