pspercy

<b>The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said. </b>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6979138.stm

Would this affect your travel plans if implemented ?

ira

According to the link:
&quot;The present database in England and Wales holds details of 4m people who are guilty or cleared of a crime.

Lord Justice Sedley said this was indefensible and biased against ethnic minorities, and it would be fairer to include everyone, guilty or innocent&quot;.

Could this be considered a reductio ad absurdum of one form of politically correct thinking?

flanneruk

This is one judge's personal view, laid out in a radio interview.

It's based on a rather convoluted argument about the inherent bias of a DNA archive derived from arrests. It's got nothing to dowith any government or Parliamentarian's proposal to improve crime fighting.

And the Prime Minster's spokesman said he's pretty iffy about the idea.

Judges don't pass statutes. This is a silly season story that will soon disappear.

Michael

I believe that Iceland has, if not the DNA, all the medical records of its entire population.

audere_est_facere

What is true is that if you are suspected of a crime and a DNA sample is taken, and you are subsequently cleared the information stays on the database. I think that's a bit iffy.

I'm on the database (it's a way of eliminating professionals at crime scenes), and I don't like it.

nona1

I think it's decidedly iffy to retain the records of innocent arrested people. So I can sort of see the judges point - why have some innocent people on the database but not others? If the innocent but arrested people's info is retained to help with future crime solving, then logically it should be all innocent people.

Not that I agree with it.

I think we should do something to the US visitors though to get our own back for their fingerprinting us

PatrickLondon

Any record system is subject to human failure; the bigger it is, the bigger the scope for errors. And the greater the running costs.

It's the 80/20 rule as well. Most of the time, crimes are likely to have been committed by a relatively small proportion of people, most of whom may already be known to the database. If they aren't then in any case where DNA evidence is likely to be relevant, it's likely to come from a relatively small number of people of known relevance to the particular investigation.

What would be the point of spending all that money on the much smaller chance of identifying someone from the mostly law-abiding majority? Waste of time and money, and a diversion of trained people from where they're needed. Like the whole ID card database farrago. But don't get me started on that - I've a pot of tea to drink.

sashh

I was arrested last year - so my DNA is on the database.

Why was I arrested? Well a work colleague was harassing me. Told lies about me at work stole property from me and when I would not react she phoned the police and told them I had used her e-mail to contact an acquaintance of hers. She presented no evidence other than a reply to an e-mail sent to her account.

I consider my DNA being kept as a continuation of her harassment but there is nothing I can do about it.

How do I feel - I'm making plans to emigrate. It won't return my DNA, I know that but I don't want to live in a country that treats people this way.

PalenqueBob

Brown says U.K. needs a written Constitution documenting citizens' rights - this stupid theory is one reason why.

What happened to the right of privacy?

Make it fair - erase records of accused found innocent - simple solution.

But then criminals themselves released will be at an unfair state as well so do we have to erase their DNA records/ think not and that would be in Constitution hopefully.

ira

Re keeping DNA records of persons arrested but not convicted:

Not all persons accused of crimes are found guilty, even though they might be.

PalenqueBob

Ira - i conclude then that you are in favor of everyone being in the data base - if not the really innocent ones would infairly have to be in it.

And there are criminals if not covicts in the normal population who have not been caught either.

Michael

I suspect that if a law enforcement agency collects your DNA in the U.S., it will be forever on record. Look at all the people who have FBI files. When I was a student I applied for a job as a file clerk in the U.N. and had to be OK'd by the FBI who interviewed our neighbor about me. So somewhere in Washington there is a file on me although I have fortunately or perhaps embarrassingly never done anything that would require a police investigation.

ira

Hi PB,

&gt;Ira - i conclude then that you are in favor of everyone being in the data base - if not the really innocent ones would infairly have to be in it.&lt;

I think that you have jumped beyond what I intended. The question was about the fairness of keeping DNA data on file for people who were arrested but not convicted.

For my own part, I don't care if my DNA is on file. My fingerprints are.

All of my personal data is immediately available by court order.

Some if it is available online to anyone who has the proper software.

However, I do recognize that some folks are concerned, and I don't disregard their concerns.

flanneruk

&quot;I suspect that if a law enforcement agency collects your DNA in the U.S., it will be forever on record&quot;

I doubt it.

The standard figures quoted in this debate are that British police have DNA records of 5% of the population (and 40% of black men), while all US authorities have DNA records of 0.5% of the US population. And that the US keeps records ONLY of people found guilty.

The figures and argument may be mistaken - but there are a lot of human rights activists here citing the US as a beacon of freedom on this issue.

Incidentally, putting aside issues about cost and practicality, can someone give me a human rights argument against DNA archiving? Sedley, the judge responsible for the current furore (and we can safely conclude his career's not going to go much further) is a leading pro-rights judge.

PalenqueBob

&lt;Incidentally, putting aside issues about cost and practicality, can someone give me a human rights argument against DNA archiving&gt;

the fear of potential false positive matches - say i handle a $100 bill before a crook steals it

or just a mistake - DNA samples could be mixed up

The famous in the US Duke Lacrosse gang rape case showed that DNA mix ups and screw ups can and do occur.

Is that a good enough reason?

Not if you believe human error or human setting up someone is impossible and the match rates if done right over 100%

flanneruk

No, that's simply an argument for having a proper system of trial by jury.
And a fully funded system of Legal Aid to make sure people can fight bum raps.

Michael

flanneruk,

While the courts may have decided one way, it hardly means that the police authorities necessarily follow the rulings. It is thought that J. Edgar Hoover could not be fired because he held too much on those who could have fired him. It's only years later that we discover the misdeeds of police surveillance. DNA records could be just another form of information gathering.

fnarf999

I'm not sure where I come down on the DNA database issue, but surely whatever the false-positive rate for DNA evidence is, it's a million times lower than the false-positive rate for, say, eye-witness testimony. As many people recently released from prison after DNA evidence cleared them, despite their perfectly above-board jury trial conviction.

The law gets things wrong a lot of the time. There's another argument against the death penalty, as a number of people have in fact been put to death for crimes they didn't commit, which is about the most repellent use of state power that I can imagine.

stokebailey

bookmark
fascinating stuff that I'm not smart enough to comment upon.

libuse

I'm British and also DNA recorded as an &quot;enforcement professional&quot; (ugh!)

I think its fairly important here to bear in mind that this is the opinion of one individual judge, its not going to inform policy, and its pretty much a bit of a story on a news day when the only news alternative today was to have reporters explaining hybrid genetic manipulation, which, frankly, was never going to happen.

Sorry, its a non-story