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This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39156594,00.htm

MP slams "out of control" DNA database
How many innocent people's DNA samples does your police force have?

By Andy McCue

Published: Monday 20 February 2006

An "out of control stealth database" storing thousands of innocent people's DNA is being created because of a lack of guidelines and controls over how police collect DNA, according to a campaign group led by Conservative MP Grant Shapps.

More than 100,000 innocent adults have their DNA permanently stored on the national police database. Figures obtained by Shapps show more than 24,000 children aged between 10 and 18 have had their DNA added despite never being cautioned or charged for any offence.

Police have been able to take and keep DNA records and fingerprints of anyone arrested for a recordable offence, even if they are later released without caution or charge, since April 2004. The DNA is stored for life and can only be removed at the chief constable's discretion.

The total number of records on the UK's national DNA database passed the three million mark this year - just over five per cent of the UK population - with the number of crimes solved using the profiles also continuing to rise.

But the "postcode lottery" of wide regional variation in the collection of children's DNA by police forces shows a lack of national consistency in adding samples to the database, according to Shapps.

The figures obtained by Shapps show that Northamptonshire police are adding innocent kids' DNA profiles at the fastest rate - 182 per 100,000 children each month - closely followed by Durham, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

At the opposite end of the scale Thames Valley police are only adding three kids' DNA profiles per 100,000 each month with West Mercia and Humberside the lowest at just one per month. The full regional breakdown can be found here.

Shapps is backing the 'Children off the National DNA Database' (Cond) campaign, to have innocent children's DNA removed from the national police database, saying that the practice degrades the public's confidence in the system because of a lack of "checks and safeguards".

He told silicon.com: "The government is extremely complacent and I think their objective is to create a DNA database by stealth."

But the Home Office said that 7,591 DNA samples of children and adults not charged or cautioned and which would otherwise have been destroyed have been later matched to samples from crime scenes since 2001.

Shapps acknowledged the benefits of the DNA database in helping the police solve crimes but said if the government wants to create a national database containing the DNA of innocent people as well as those charged and convicted of crimes then it requires new legislation.

He said: "The current anomaly of adding innocent children to the database and then refusing to remove them once their innocence has been established, degrades the public's confidence in the system."

The government issued new guidelines for chief police officers on the removal of DNA records from the database last week but Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Lynne Featherstone MP said this does not go far enough.

She said in a statement: "The government needs to come clean on this issue. We need to know if the government is creating a database of everyone in the country by stealth or if the database will only be used to store the profiles of criminals."