Britannia Radio

GUARDIAN    4.5.09
Jacqui Smith says DNA database profiles of 800,000 innocent people 
will be axed
. Home secretary signals retreat over court ruling
. Destruction will include data and physical samples

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, will publish plans this week for 
the destruction of the DNA profiles of nearly a million innocent 
people from the police national database. The government's response 
follows a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights last year that 
the practice of retaining the DNA profiles was illegal.

In a retreat from plans to get round the judgment, first reported in 
the Guardian in February, the new proposals will also include the 
destruction of all physical samples, such as mouth swabs, hair and 
blood. They will be published in a consultation paper on forensics.

Smith told the Observer today that there were genuine concerns over 
the size and scope of the DNA database. "It is crucial that we do 
everything we can to keep the public safe from crime and bring 
offenders to justice," she said.
"The DNA database plays a vital role in helping us do that. However, 
there has to be a balance between the need to protect the public and 
respecting their rights. Based on risks versus benefits, our view is 
that we can now destroy all samples."

Of the 5.1 million people on the database, about 800,000 have no 
criminal conviction; they may have been arrested and never charged, 
or taken to court and found not guilty. After the court ruling last 
December which criticised the "blanket and indiscriminate nature" of 
the UK regime, Smith ordered the profiles of all young children to be 
removed immediately, and indicated that time limits would be 
introduced for those not convicted of any crime.

Civil liberty groups will be anxious to see how long the police are 
allowed to keep the DNA data before they are required to remove it. 
While Home Office officials say the decision to destroy samples as 
well goes further than the European court ruling, critics say that 
the measures do not go far enough.

"The DNA database is already too big," said Simon Davies, director of 
the campaign group Privacy International. "We would argue that the 
samples of anyone convicted of even minor offences should be removed."

The Conservatives, who have argued that allowing the government to 
store the DNA data of anyone questioned by the police "represents an 
unacceptable extension of the power of the state", are unlikely to be 
content with the government's retreat. They would like to see England 
and Wales adopt a similar system to Scotland, which allows the DNA of 
adults charged with sexual or violent offences to be stored for three 
years. The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, writing on 
guardian.co.uk after the European court ruling, said: "There is 
nothing to consult about. The situation is straightforward. It's 
illegal. So stop."

Although no one concerned with the criminal justice system denies the 
importance of DNA forensic evidence, there are fears that officials 
will now attempt to collect stronger evidence of how the use of DNA 
evidence solves crimes, after the court said it would need "weighty 
reasons" to justify the current scale of the police database.

The Home Office says that between April 1998 and September 2008, 
there were more than 390,000 crimes with DNA matches.

But its own evidence to the European court showed it did not have 
figures for any crimes solved by stored DNA data from unconvicted 
people. A barrister in the case, Stephen Cragg, told the Guardian 
recently: "The majority of examples provided by the government 
involved matching suspects' DNA with crime scene stains. These cases 
did not involve samples retained from innocent people."  [Wow!  
THAT's an example of State Double-speak! -cs]