UK: Government plans to keep DNA samples of innocent

By Gideon Swift | Published: February 27, 2009

Hollywood might be the center of trendsetting when it comes to fashionable dress and abominable personal behaviors, but it seems to me that Britain has become the trendsetting capital when it comes to fascist governments…so, behold thine future Amerika.

Source: The Guardian

The government is planning to get around a European court ruling that condemned Britain’s retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people by keeping the original samples used to create the database, the Guardian has learned.

A damning ruling last December criticised the “blanket and indiscriminate nature” of the UK’s current DNA database – which includes DNA from those never charged with an offence – and said the government had overstepped acceptable limits of storing data for crime detection.

Last month the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she would publish a white paper setting out “a more proportionate, fair and commonsense approach”, but she has not given any indication whether DNA samples already obtained would be destroyed. However, Home Office sources said the government, which was given three months to respond to the ruling, has “no plans” to destroy samples of DNA.

The revelation raises questions about the extent of the government’s response to the court’s findings and prompted fresh criticism last night of its “surveillance state” ambitions. The Guardian this week revealed the scale of Whitehall plans to mine data on innocent citizens from public and private databases in order to enhance the fight against terrorism.

Writing in today’s Guardian, the justice secretary, Jack Straw, accepts he must climb down on a controversial clause in the coroners’ and justice bill, which civil liberties critics have warned is too vague and widely drawn. Straw admits there are “justifiable concerns” that personal data – from medical records to the identity card register – could be used for purposes far removed from their original intention.

The concerns over handling DNA samples come as the Home Office has set out amendments to the police and crime bill which would give the home secretary power to make new regulations about the retention of DNA, without further parliamentary scrutiny.