Compulsory DNA database?

[Wuppertal]

From BBC News:

Mandatory DNA database rejected

Calls to put the DNA of every UK resident on a national database are impractical, the government has said.
A senior police officer has argued for a universal register, after two killers were convicted on DNA evidence.

Discuss...

I can't decide personally. I can certainly see the benefits of doing that, catching dangerous criminals quickly, or deterring the crimes from being committed in the first place.

But at the same time I can see busy-body mania, and the busy-bodies of this world must not win! An example of what I mean is: if there is a "do not touch" sign on something at a shop or museum, whenever the owner sees someone touching it, they will have the police round to swab it and catch the naughty toucher and go overcrowing our prisons with people who don't need to be there.

[sejintenej]

As I understand it, the police can only take a DNA sample if a person is arrested for a recordable offence.

"Arrest" is taking a person to a police station "for questioning" if he or she has not already gone there voluntarily. Note that the terms say arrest - NOT conviction, NOT charged. If a person has already gone voluntarily they can hold him for 24 or 36 hours - under arrest just so they can take a sample.

That means that the police can come to your door, drag you down the slammer and question you for 30 seconds about a murder in Lesser Nowhere, Outer Mongolia and take your DNA before kicking you out the door. That way they can sample everyone over 5 as quickly as they can process the DNA samples. Having done that some idiot will then "lose" the computer records in a public street.

Of course under Tony Blair's rules anyone who disagrees with Labour policies can be considered a threat to the state or its MPs and therefore locked up sine dei as a terrorist or lunatic without trial; no doubt the police will be round here tomorrow to get my DNA by which time I will be gone.

[marty]

Got no real problem with it. It's so accurate that all it will do is rule innocent people out of crimes and guilty people in and it'll enable the police to solve crimes a lot more quickly. It's only a problem if you've done something wrong. I'm sure Shami Chakrabarti won't like it....

[Katharine]

In principle I feel just like Marty on this. However, I am not convinced that such a large database is technically possible. I also wonder how expensive and time consuming it would be to set up. Would police resources be spent on this rather than actual policing?

Thus I think I come down to saying that it would not worry me if it was technically possible at a reasonable price and did not stop actual community policing.

[englishangel]

First step on the road to "1984" is my thought. Why not put contraceptives in the water while they are at it?

[midget]

What a good idea, Mary. Let's hope the control freak in Downing Street doesn't read this forum!

Maggie

[sejintenej]

First step on the road to "1984" is my thought. Why not put contraceptives in the water while they are at it?

Don't they already? It is said that London drinking water has already been through 13 people before you consume it and there are 13 waiting for you to put it down the toilet pan; how many of those 13 are on the pill?
The hormone is not destroyed by the purification process - if you live in London you don't know what brand of "the pill" you are unwillingly consuming in tiny quantities but constantly, 24/7.
It gets worse - some common plastics leach chemicals which are involved in sex changes - from male to female - which has an equivalent effect and also is not removed by standard water purification procedures.

[Wuppertal]

Whatever the downsides - and there are significant downsides - these well-known serial murderers whose names don't deserve to be given any more attention would have been caught straight away and people's lives would have been saved with such a database.

Can anyone give a decent reason why the slight inconvenience of having your mouth swabbed and being on a database is more important than preventing and solving murders?

[Great Plum]

Well, watching the Last Enemy, would you want an enormous database like this?

[englishangel]

First step on the road to "1984" is my thought. Why not put contraceptives in the water while they are at it?

Don't they already? It is said that London drinking water has already been through 13 people before you consume it and there are 13 waiting for you to put it down the toilet pan; how many of those 13 are on the pill?
The hormone is not destroyed by the purification process - if you live in London you don't know what brand of "the pill" you are unwillingly consuming in tiny quantities but constantly, 24/7.
It gets worse - some common plastics leach chemicals which are involved in sex changes - from male to female - which has an equivalent effect and also is not removed by standard water purification procedures.

Especially if you leave a bottle in the car in the sun.

[Mid A 15]

A no from me.

One of the fundamental liberties of an Englishman since the Magna Carta is innocent until proven guilty.

Why should innocent people, in a supposedly free society, be subjected to the invasion of their right of privacy by having a police officer tamper with their saliva or other bodily fluids?

How secure will this wonderful data base be from either contamination, a very real risk with DNA, or corruption in that those of whom The State disapproves can be "fitted up ?"

Neither the Government or our wonderful boys in blue are trustworthy in my opinion.

A few random reasons: The Inland Revenue cds fiasco, NHS records being found on rubbish dumps, Stephen Lawrence, The poor murdered Brazilian Electrician I could go on.


The (largely EU driven) tendency for Government control and removal of Civil Liberties concerns me greatly and I'm no lefty lover of criminals.

I would spend the money earmarked for this database of the innocents on ensuring that murderers, rapists, muggers and those guilty of other physical assaults against innocent people going about their daily business can be properly incarcerated to protect the public at large. As things stand the only criminals guaranteed a prison place are those War Veteran OAPs brave enogh to make a political stand against the iniquitious Council Tax.

[Richard Ruck]

What a good idea, Mary. Let's hope the control freak in Downing Street doesn't read this forum!

Maggie

He doesn't need to - his friends in Langley, Virginia will have already done so!

[sejintenej]

Can anyone give a decent reason why the slight inconvenience of having your mouth swabbed and being on a database is more important than preventing and solving murders?

Quite simply because Blair was proposing to prevent people travelling if he didn't approve of them - not whether they had a record of two parking tickets but more if they opposed his political proposals.
That is easiest enforced using a DNA database

[michael scuffil]

I live in Germany, where they know a thing or two about dictatorships. That's why they have no CCTV in public places, no nationally held records of any kind, serious restrictions on the sharing of information by local authorities who do hold it, and the DNA database is confined to those convicted of serious crime (basically: homicide, GBH, armed robbery and rape).

Oh, and the standard parking fine is 5 euros (albeit repeatable at half-hourly intervals).

And local authorities have to get a search warrant to search your dustbin for the wrong sort of rubbish.

[jhopgood]

Although there are obvious advantages to having lots of details on a database to catch the wrong doers, it is open to misuse in the most unexpected ways.
I lived in Holland for a while where they seemed to have everyone registered in such a way that they even checked up if your children did not start at kindergarten when their records suggested they should.
I was told that these records had been in existence for some time, but that after the war they had a rethink.
Apparently, records originally included details of religion, and when the Nazis invaded, it was easy for them to round up all the Jews based on these records.
I don't believe there is any way of avoiding similar abuses, which I am sure go on at the present, instigated by our friends across the pond, but would only feel comfortable for the powers that be to hold sufficient details to keep me in the system, name address etc, but that all other records, medical etc, can be kept on a chip on a card, to which only I and people I authorise, can have access.
I know the techies will tell me that there is always a back entrance to any programme, but at least the card will be in my possession. Just have to make sure the back up is also under my control.
Not easy and I am sure that eventually 1984 will arrive, but hopefully I will be gone by then or living somewhere where the state is not so obsessive about controls.