'Put the entire UK population on DNA database' urges top judge
A senior judge today called for the whole population and every visitor to Britain to be added to the national DNA database.
Lord Justice Sedley said the database which holds DNA from crime suspects and scenes is "indefensible" because it is unfair and inconsistent.
He also said an expanded database would aid crime prevention.
Critics say those who commit certain offences should have their details removed after a set period.
The DNA database - which is 12 years old and, with four million profiles, the largest in the world - grows by 30,000 samples a month taken from suspects or recovered from crime scenes.
The data of everyone arrested for a recordable offence - all but the most minor offences - remain on the system regardless of age, seriousness of alleged offence, and whether or not they were prosecuted.
It includes some 24,000 samples from young people between 10 and 17 years old, who were arrested but never convicted.
Sir Stephen Sedley, who is one of England's most experienced appeal court judges, told the BBC: "Where we are at the moment is indefensible.
"We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, then your DNA is on permanent record. If you haven't, it isn't... that's broadly the picture.
"It means that people who have been arrested but acquitted - some because they are innocent, some because they are just lucky - all stay on the database.
"It also means that a great many people who are walking the streets and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free."
He said reducing the database would be a mistake because he knew of cases where an offender who had escaped conviction had ultimately been brought to justice by DNA evidence.
He said the only option was to expand the database to cover the whole population and all those who visit the UK.
"Going forwards has very serious but manageable implications. It means that everybody guilty or innocent should expect their DNA to be on file for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection."
But Professor Stephen Bain, a member of the national DNA database strategy board, warned expansion would be expensive and make mistakes more likely. "The DNA genie can't be put back in the bottle," he said.
"If the information about you is exposed due to illegal or perhaps even legalised use of the database, in a way that is not currently anticipated, then it's a very difficult situation."
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The DNA database has revolutionised the way the police can protect the public through identifying offenders and securing more convictions. It provides the police on average with around 3,500 matches each month."
She said there are no Government plans to introduce a universal compulsory, or voluntary, national DNA database, but that the Home Office is currently undertaking a review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace) 1984, which sets out the powers to take and retain biometric data.
Home Office Minister Tony McNulty told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I think we are broadly sympathetic to the thrust of what he has said. There is no Government plans to go to a compulsory database now or in the foreseeable future.
"There is a logic to what Sir Stephen is saying. I have said that myself in the past, that there is a real logic and cohesion to the point that says 'Well, put everybody on'.
"But I think he probably does under-estimate the practicalities, logistics and huge civil liberties and ethics issue around that."
Last month it emerged that a new profile is added to the national DNA database every 45 seconds. Current thresholds allow only for samples to be taken from individuals arrested for a "recordable" offence, usually a crime punishable by imprisonment.
Anyone picked up for a non-recordable offence cannot have a sample taken without their consent to confirm or disprove their involvement in that offence, or to create a record in a national searchable database.
But a summary of responses to the Home Office review of Pace said that a number of respondents "welcomed the ability to reduce the threshold, including to the extent of allowing for the taking of fingerprints, DNA and footwear impressions for non-recordable offences for the purpose of offender identification and searching databases".
Also last month, the Human Genetics Commission (HGC), the Government's advisory body on new developments in human genetics, launched a Citizens' Inquiry into the use of DNA and genetic information to fight crime.
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, the HGC's chair, said: "The police in England and Wales have powers, unrivalled internationally, to take a DNA sample from any arrested individual, without their consent.
"We want to ensure that the public voice is heard on issues that people think are relevant.
"The Citizens' Inquiry is likely to grapple with issues such as whether storing the DNA profiles of victims and suspects who are not charged, or who are subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing, is justified by the need to fight crime."
She said that the current database stored a preponderance of samples from young men, including the samples of one third of British black males, and that under current law it is very difficult to have your sample removed.
But she added that the database was helping to bring people to justice over a "steadily increasing" number of serious crimes, including murders and rapes.
According to statistics released in June, the DNA fingerprints of 108 children aged under 10 have been stored and there were a further 883,888 records of people aged between 10 and 17.
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