A dozen years ago, Britain did not have a criminal DNA database. Now it is the largest in the world by far with four million profiles. It was established in 1995 almost on an ad hoc basis to store the profiles taken from convicted criminals. There was not even any primary legislation to set it up. Parliament has, however, subsequently passed various bits of legislation setting out the circumstances in which the police can take and retain DNA. It started with convicted criminals, was then extended to people who were tried but acquitted, then to people who were charged but never tried and then, last year, to people who were arrested but never charged.The Government wants to go a further step and compulsorily retain DNA from people who are suspects or just witnesses and whose samples are taken for elimination purposes. Now, a senior judge has called for this step by step, and somewhat random, accumulation of data to end. Lord Justice Sedley says everyone should be on the database - even foreigners on a weekend visit.
The sheer impracticalities of the latter proposal would make that impossible. There are 30 million visitors to the UK every year and the impact on the tourist industry of requiring them all to hand over a mouth swab with their ticket would be enormous.
But the Government is far more amenable to the idea of every UK citizen being on a DNA database. Ministers have ''no immediate plans'' to extend the scheme but are known to have a good deal of sympathy with the proposal. Tony Blair said it might be a good idea last year on a visit to the Forensic Science Service in London. Senior police chiefs have gone so far to suggest that everybody's DNA should be taken at birth and stored on the database. At present, 30,000 profiles are added every month. More than five per cent of the population are now covered. (Daily Telegraph)
