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Ministers face DNA database battle
Martin Bentham07.05.09
Ministers were today facing a legal battle and angry protests over new plans to retain the DNA profiles of innocent people for up to 12 years on the national database.
Under proposals announced today by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the DNA profiles of all people who are arrested will be kept for six years even if they are not charged or convicted.
The records of those released without charge after being accused of serious violent and sexual offences will be stored for double that time.
The reforms will replace existing rules under which DNA profiles are retained indefinitely. They follow a European Court of Human Rights ruling last year that the practice was unlawful.
Ministers say the new proposals will comply with this judgment while allowing police to retain profiles which help solve crimes.
But civil liberties campaigners threatened to mount a new legal challenge, arguing that the changes did not go far enough.
Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: “The Home Secretary has yet to learn about the presumption of innocence and value of privacy.
“Wholly innocent people will have their most intimate details stockpiled for years on a database massively out of step with the rest of the world. We shall be forced to see her in court once more.” Today's reforms will lead to up to 850,000 profiles of innocent people being removed from the database, which holds records for about 5.3 million.
Ministers say the change will lead to up to 4,500 fewer crime detections each year. Last year alone, 17,614 crimes were solved with a DNA match, including 83 killings and 184 rapes.
Jill Saward, who has campaigned for crime victims since being raped at her father's Ealing vicarage in 1986, backed the retention of the DNA profiles of the innocent.
“Anything that takes away the possibilities of finding out who the guilty are is very detrimental,” she said.
Reader views (1)
Forget the European Courts ruling the British Governments DNA data base held on innocent people; is illegal.
You can’t expect a British Government that itself, steals tax payers money on ficticous and immoral expense accounts, to worry about obeying any European High Court rulings.
It is one law for them; and another law for the people that pay their wages, pensions, and their expense accounts.
I wonder if any of them will ever faces justice for their crimes against the Nation; and if they are by any chance found innocent; will they still like their DNA being held on their own data base etc.
- Mickyinlondon, london
