Security Bullet In
Communiques from the security front, sir
Wednesday 11 November 2009, 5:23 PM
DNA details of innocent will be kept for six years
In response to a consultation it launched last December, the government said in a statement on Wednesday that it would "remove the DNA profiles of all adults arrested but not charged or convicted of any recordable offence after six years".
However, the Times reported on Wednesday that terrorism suspects could still have their DNA retained indefinitely.
A Home Office spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that people's DNA deemed to be of "national interest" will be stored for longer than six years. That retention will be reviewed every two years by a senior police officer.
The government was forced to rethink its policy on DNA retention following the outcome of a test case last year. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in December that two people, Michael Marper, and a person identified as 'S', had their rights infringed by the UK government indefinitely storing their DNA.
At the time, legal site Out-Law.com reported that ECHR had not offered guidance as to how the UK government could comply with human rights law with respect to DNA.
PreviousComments on this post
Maybe the ECHR did not give guidance on how to comply with their ruling. If they had there would have been uproar from the UKIP and other anti European nutters, who would cut of their nose to spite their European face.
However the committee of ministers of the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, has already confirmed that a blanket six year period would still not comply with the right to respect for private life.
So why bother with this token gesture?
Well I can understand this falling into the standard six year category of data protection act of things, as for more seriousness of crimes then yes i haft to agree to keep them on file.
If keeping Dna on record means that murderers, pedophiles, rapists, new or old can be caught sooner rather than later then yes I haft to agree with the storing of it, but when it falls to the abuse of position side of the fence then yes i also have serious concerns about that.
So the question comes back down to time line, if convicted then yes time to keep it increases, but lets not forget that if wrongly convicted then the keeping of such material may one day actually prove your innocence also.
Also note that previous convictions have come about purely because of such materials where being stored from past misdemeanor events, so they is importance in storing it.
This is bound to have been said many times before, but if you are innocent - and continue to be innocent - your DNA will never be found at any scene of crime unless it is in your property. So whether your DNA details are on file for six years, 60 years or six minutes makes no difference: you could never be questioned or arrested for a crime that didn't reveal that you were there.
It is not implicit - is it? - that being on file means you have a criminal record, so why all the fuss?
It seems to me that people might have equal 'reason' for objecting to being on file with the DVLA or the NHS or TV Licensing or any other legitimate database.
Actually, being innocent is no protection. Serious criminals have cottoned on to the idea of false DNA trails. It is remarkably easy to get samples from random people without their awareness, and then use a mixture of these scattered around a crime seen. I'm afraid I can't remember the source, but there is a recent report out that shows an actual decline in convictions assisted by DNA testing, with the suggestion that this is the reason.
The other thing the pople seem quite unaware of is that a DNA test can't conclusively prove you match a sample they have - and is not likely to be able to do so for very many years. This means, that the more samples they take, the great chance of a group of near matches. If you are very lucky a DNA test just MIGHT prove you could not possibly match the given sample, but never that you do.
Also, the police and their supporters seem to have no understanding of probability when they come out with these ridiculous billions to 1 chance figures. If it can ever happen once, it can happen more than once, so yes, you could at random pick out two DNA samples from totally unrelated people and find a near-perfect match... and then you could immediately do it a second time with two more samples.
A simple lesson I was taught a very long time ago, is that a toss of a coin is always 50:50. No matter how many times you do it, and no matter how many times it came up heads before-hand. The odd's of getting a line of say 50 all heads is very low, but the 51st toss is still 50:50.
So let's look ahead 10-15 years. Most of the public have now had their DNA recorded by various connivances between the government and the police, and there is a regular stream of totally innocent people from all walks of life being harrassed over supposed irrifutable evidence they were at the scene of a crime. Their lives will now be turned upside down and ruined - probably both socially and financially - with absolutely no possibility of compensation.
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