Government ‘cannot be trusted’ with DNA database
Miles Erwin writes in Metro:
A million innocent people should have their records wiped from the national DNA database, a ‘citizen’s inquiry’ told Gordon Brown last night.
Criminals who have served their time should also have their details wiped off the system, according to the £50,000 report, which was ordered by the prime minister in January.
The growing use of the database was ‘a step towards a totalitarian state’ at a time when people did not trust the government with their personal data, the inquiry found.
Instead, the records should be taken away from the police and the Home Office and run by an independent body, it suggested.
James Slack, writing in the Daily Mail, points out that the “National database” is actually run differently in Scotland:
Ministers claim that many of those cleared of the offence which first landed them on the database were later trapped by their DNA when committing another.
But the public mistrusts this argument, which appears to rest on the grounds that when someone is arrested there is ‘no smoke without fire’.
Ministers have failed to explain why they cannot follow Scotland’s lead. There, samples of those cleared of wrongdoing are routinely deleted.
In 2005-2006, 21,748 samples were destroyed north of the border, with little noticeable impact in the fight against crime.
