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Delete innocent's DNA profiles, urges Diane Abbott
Felix Allen21.08.09
Hackney MP Diane Abbott is to offer advice to constituents on how to get their DNA profiles wiped from the national database after shadow immigration minister Damian Green won the battle to have his removed this week.
Ms Abbott says black men are more likely to have their genetic fingerprint stored, leaving them "stigmatised" even when innocent of any crime.
Scotland Yard's decision to delete Mr Green's profile after no charges were brought against him in the Whitehall leaks inquiry has led to fresh demands to delete records of at least 850,000 who are on the database despite never having been convicted of an offence.
In December the European Court of Human Rights ruled the "blanket" retention of DNA unlawful, but the Home Office still plans to allow police forces to keep innocent people's DNA for up to 12 years, a power introduced in 2001. The removal of profiles is at the discretion of chief constables and only a few hundred requests a year succeed.
But Ms Abbott and lawyers from campaign group Liberty are to hold a series of "clinics" in Hackney from next month to help those who think their DNA has been retained unfairly.
The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: "As the Home Affairs Select Committee pointed out this month, black men are disproportionately represented on the database.
"In particular there are tens of thousands of innocent young people who have been stigmatised in this way. It is time the Government acted on the ECHR ruling that automatic retention of DNA is wrong."
Mr Green said: "I want every innocent person who has been arrested and whose records are being wrongly held to be treated the same as me."
Anna Fairclough, of Liberty, said: "If Damian Green MP can have his DNA destroyed in record time, young people in Hackney should be entitled to the same."
The national DNA database, the largest in the world, contains 5.3 million entries, including more than 300,000 children.
Reader views (7)
As I have stated before:
Big brother may find he has an even ‘Bigger Brother’ watching him. This surveillance and Data Collection Technology may already be being used by Counter Intelligence Services from other counties.
As already disclosed many times via the media, the Data the Government does have is very loosely guarded. Laptops left in public places, CD discs and DVD Discs left in public places.
To cap it all they still want to store more of our private and personal data. British National Security is becoming a bad joke at our expense.
Also DNA evidence can be fabricated and planted at crime scenes, scientists warn.
Signed
Carl Barron
Chairman of agpcuk
Action Group for the Protection of Communities UK
- Carl Barron, Christchurch, Dorset
Only a matter of time before this 'secure' information is left on a laptop someplace and gets stolen. Happens rather frequently - just read this paper.
- Trunk, US
Under this governments direction, you are now all guilty and under control of the State. You can only do what the State and its Police permits.
Previously in more enlightened times it was the People that gave the State and the Police its powers.
Diane & Damien if you really believed what you said, you would be introducing a bill through parliament to give the People back their rights.
- Ian, Reading, England
This is ridiculous: the whole trouble with electronically stored data is you have no idea how many back-ups and copies have been taken. It's not like the old paper files of finger-prints: who knows how many places this information has been stored, who has hacked into it, who copied it to a laptop? How do you prove it has been deleted? These swabs are being taken very lightly for the most spurious of reasons, as Damian Green's case highlights. As always with Labour, it has brought in a Big Brother Database by stealth because it knows it would never get away with it openly. It also permits the police to get very, very lazy at doing their job and does away with the foundation of British law: the presumption of innocence. The UK is a hairsbreadth from being a Police State should the wrong person seize power. Remember, Germany started with a Database in the 1930s . . .
- Roz, France
Will it be possible to delete the actual DNA of certain people? That might be useful, although I can think of a few ethical issues that it might raise.
- Bloke, London
As someone who knows something about the UK police computer systems all I can do is laugh when they say they've deleted data.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark
Damian Green MP can have his DNA removed from the national database.
The DNA of over 1,000,000 INNOCENT PEEPS is currently stored on the police DNA database - contrary to the EU recent ruling.
ONE LAW FOR AN MP AND A DIFFERENT LAW FOR JOE PUBLIC.
- Reuben Camara, Principality of Morecambe, EUSSR
