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Innocent people who want their DNA profile deleted from the national police database may have to wait up to 10 months, it was revealed today.
The Met has to go through five administrative stages involving up to nine staff to get records removed. There were calls today for Mayor Boris Johnson to put pressure on Scotland Yard to streamline the process and cut costs.
The force added 96,471 samples to the DNA database between August last year and September this year at a cost of £3million. In that period, 316 people asked for their sample be deleted, with 76 requests authorised so far.
In August last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that innocent people's samples should be deleted.
London Assembly member Jenny Jones said: "The Mayor needs to demonstrate his commitment to civil liberties by championing this simple efficiency saving in the current budget discussions."
Reader views (9)
I urge every one to write to their MP and ask them to vote against the proposals on DNA retention in the Crime and Security Bill announced in the Queens Speech today hurry you only have 33 days for this Parliamentary session.
- Henry, ondon, 18/11/2009 14:05
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Huggy - anyone who has your DNA profile can manufacture DNA to replicate it. They can then plant "your" DNA at a crime scene to incriminate you - either because they have it in for you, or because you were a random choice to throw the police off their scent. Pray you have a cast-iron alibi when this happens. Incidentally the same is true for fingerprints.
The technology to replicate DNA is leading-edge bioscience at present, which probably means it'll be available in every well-equipped laboratory 10 years hence and on sale for peanuts on E-bay in twenty. Organised crime will have hacked in to the DNA database so your record, and everyone else's, will be in the hands of all criminals who have a use for it. That's if a civil servant doesn't just leave it on a train.
This is assuming that all future UK governments stay benign. Imagine how it would be with the nazi tendency of the BNP in power. And since a DNA profile can identify your children and grandchildren, it can even put children as yet unborn at risk from governments in power long after we have passed away.
Nobody who has not been convicted of a serious crime should be in the DNA database.
- Nigel, London, 17/11/2009 17:01
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Who believes the police will actually delete the records? yeah right.
- Thomas, London, 17/11/2009 16:59
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Your DNA record is your property and belongs to no one else. Except when you break the law and then, like fingerprints, they are stored in case you reoffend. I have never understood the argument that the authorities have a god given right to retain the DNA of totally innocent people. There was a mistaken belief for years that fingerprints could not be lifted from one place to another. How long before chinks start appearing in the veracity of DNA evidence? The idea of 100,000s innocent peoples DNA records being stored by the authorities I believe is totally wrong. DNA can tell much more about an individual than a set of fingerprints. Fingerprints of innocent people were routinely destroyed, so why are DNA records being treated so differently? Our liberties under NuLabour have been eroded so much I find it hard to believe I still live in a country called England.
- Brian G, Norfolk Gorleston, 17/11/2009 16:22
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Why all the fuss? - Surely the only time DNA will be of any use to anyone is if it's found at a crime scene?
- Huggy, Cumbernauld Scotland, 17/11/2009 15:29
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So how long does it take to add?
- Michael De Ferrari, London, 17/11/2009 13:08
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So the Met is still breaking the law - as is the Government - when can we expect arrests regarding those responsible?
What part of the ECHR ruling are you police too stupid to understand??? You are LAWBREAKERS, you don't get the irony of that either, do you? You can't use the excuse that you are 'following orders from above'.
No wonder you don't get the public's respect, you are becoming more and more a political police force.
- Ralph, London, 17/11/2009 11:34
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Knowing the system I call bull on this. The data can't be deleted, it can only be made harder to find.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark, 17/11/2009 11:22
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Gormless Brown will not be satisfied until all babies are barcoded in indelible ink on their foreheads at birth.
Welcome to Third World banana republic Police State bankrupt cesspit UK.
- Reuben Camara, Plot 1, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR, 17/11/2009 10:09
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