Don't delay: Delete your DNA today Now that a European Court has decided that the retention of the DNA of innocent people is illegal - what should you do now? Earlier this month, 17 judges on the Grand Chambers of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled unanimously that the UK is in violation of the right to respect for private and family life (Article …
I remember when I saw the news of the judgement on the BBC 6 o'clock News (I think). They said something along the lines of:
'This is already the case in Scotland, where even people of accused of serious crimes, such as rape and murder, have their DNA records deleted'.
As though some how, being found innocent of murder or rape (or even arrested and not charged), makes you more guilty than someone found innocent of (say) theft.
They then went on to say how Steve Wright (Ipswitch prostitute serial killer), had been identified because his DNA was on the national database - without any mention to the fact that the new ruling would make no difference, as he was on the database because he had been *convicted* of theft (whether that crime was detected due to an earlier, non successful conviction, I couldn't say).
I am glad the EU have finally brought some sense to the situation - the downside is that it greatly increases the likelyhood of a complete national DNA database of everyone in the country (when this is feasible) or who visits the country. Having said that, I would rather a database with everyone on than one with some innocent and some guilty.
At least If they have a complete database of (almost) everyone, when the expert witness says that the match is 99.999% positive, the defence can ask if there was anyone else in the database with who was as close/closer match and what where the top 5 results and how close a match were they.
One thing I would like to know is what are your rights if you are arrested now, are they allowed to sample your DNA and compare it against the unsolved crime database or are they only allowed to compare it against DNA evidence found in relation to the crime you are accused - or are they only allowed to take it after you have been convicted?
If the state holding onto means of personal identification is an infringement of a person's rights, why does this not also include things such as a council tax role, school register, in fact anywhere you're supposed to identify yourself to an authority? Is knowing the state has your DNA really more detriminent to a person's "privacy" than knowing that unauthorisated photos are visible to people you don't like on facebook?
Perhaps we should also have a device that wipes policemen's memory; anytime they arrest anyone innocent, the entire event is erased; so that that future encounters aren't prejudiced.
Walking, talking, face recognising, CCTV on legs which an attentive beat cop is. Bog standard, but effectively does the same jobs as yer high tech "enemy of the state" gadgets which get everyone twitchy. Is annoymity in public a human right too?
Excuse me if I don't celebrate when a wife "harasser" admonished by wife (a tale oft' heard in the backstory of, well, Toben and countless others) has his particulars removed from the system.
Ok,
From the point of view of someone who is on this database and who is innocent I am in 2 minds about the whole thing.
On one hand I can see how a comprehensive database of DNA profiles would allow the police to better solve crime using less taxpayers money.
I am, however, against being on a database where a high proportion of people are criminals. Why?
Because despite the best intentions of an investigating officer, there is going to be an assumption that because I am on the database I am likely to be a criminal.
What to do...
So does this mean they can't take fingerprints to put on ID cards?
Or does that class as non-discriminatory since everyone is being forced to do it? Well, you don't have to, so long as you never want to leave the country, get a driving license, go to the doctor or sign on, so maybe that is discriminatory...
I used to work for the NPIA IT Service Desk (We also supported users of the NDNAD (national dna database). I can honestly say that they are the stupidest people out of all the people we supported. non encrypted emails with personal data sent out and about, been forwarded here, there and everywhere as it was an NPIA "Expansion". Get rid of the DNA database as its only a matter of time before your details are "found" on an unencrypted laptop or DVD somewhere. Take it from someone who has spoken to the employees of this company for over a year.........
**Black helecopter because they'll probably come find me.....**
If I understand this correctly, David suggests that those affected by the ruling should be proactive immediately, in order to be able to witness the destruction of their DNA and fingerprint records, should the police agree that the case those affected make in writing to the police is "exceptional", and notwithstanding that it cannot be certain that deletion of the records does at present occur? Ouch.
It's evident (eg. Irish referendum) that sometimes politicians do not understand the word No, but I suspect they can and do distinguish when the Great Unwashed says it, and when a unanimous international panel of judges says it. Reading between the lines of the judgement, I think the ECHR was just as fecked off as the complainants.
If Whacky Jacqui and Plod seem dilatory, it is because she will make no move until she has Moses Brown's say so - she's his bitch and the reason she's there is that he's sure she either won't or is incapable of stabbing him in the back politically before clambouring over the body to claw her way further up the greasy pole - and we know how Moses dithers and dallies.
regardless of what you or i might believe about the ultimate intention, DNA can only be explained partially by our current science, or should I say by our current "admitted to" science.
its quite possible, simply by using skills of deduction and intuition, to observe the links between ancient texts, current religions, science, and the constant bombardment of fantasies flying at us from all angles, that DNA or "blood" is significant to understanding what we are, and where we come from.
the rich and the royal tend to lean towards interbreeding, why? bloodlines.
the possible issue at hand is that DNA is a big leap for identification, it would be like you or i deciding to buy a car, but because we are rich, we buy an F16 fighter jet.
yes, it gets you to A and B, but do you really need to be able to travel at mach 2 speeds just to cut 10 minutes in traffic? missiles?
yes it would be cool, and yes its a total overkill, especially when the potential dangers of obtaining such information could be irreversible.
if the law says something is illegal, it means in the future they will have our DNA if we are caught doing it. what if in the future its illegal to have sex without a marriage certificate? would you stop doing it just because its "illegal"?
if the law says the local police must have a key to every house and full access to all private property, would you be ok with that?
this is a good example of what DNA databasing will do to us, DNA is the not only the scientific approach at understanding humanity, but also to control it.
"Excuse me if I don't celebrate when a wife "harasser" admonished by wife (a tale oft' heard in the backstory of, well, Toben and countless others) has his particulars removed from the system."
If the wife made it up and the guy is innocent (I'd dare say 75% of the time, but that would be construed as trolling) then there's no reason for the bloke to have his DNA in the database, is there you silly feminist git?
"Most of our DNA is the same, more than 98%, so technically _MOST_ of my DNA will still be stored on the database?"
They don't sequence any individual's entire genome, since that has not been technically feasible until fairly recently - instead, it's all about sampling sequence information at particular locations in the genome.
Of course, the government probably wants all animals on the database, too, so whole genome sequencing just to rule chimps out from the case of the stolen bananas and the fecal graffiti probably seems like money well spent to them.
to know if the fascist Labour government will be able to force us to give dna and other
samples for the ID cards and/or whether there will now have to be a restriction as to
who has access to it. I cannot believe that the police could lawfully have access.
I would also be interested to see what the European Court's view is on the use of
RIPA by Councils to catch owners of dogs that foul pavements, and the full scale
surveillance. I think that Smith's recent comments about this is due to (a) her knowing that
it is unlawful under Human Rights Act and proportionality and (b) the
fact she now whats to lie to everyone again to bring in more legislation to catch
terro.......I mean fouling dog owners.
I've never been happy about the police having my DNA since I read the Neocons plans for it,
"advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool" - Rebuilding Americas Defences, PNAC
steogede said "I would rather a database with everyone on than one with some innocent and some guilty"
This is too fucking stupid for words. Putting everyone on the database won't improve crime detection rates. There will be too much noise and not enough signal. Very few crimes today are solved by trolling the DNA database: the jocks do better even though their database only has convicted crooks on it. There will also be a higher incidence of false positives and false negatives. And because it's DNA, the technology will be infallible, right? Imagine how PC Plod will react when the find zillions of DNA matches at a crime scene: everyone will get nicked because they were there at some point and of course that means they're all guilty, won't it?
Paris icon because she's picked up more than a few DNA samples,
Equality before the law is one of the necessary requirements if it is to have moral authority. This means that either everyone has to be on the NDNAD, as Prof. Sir Alec Jeffreys has always argued, or no one.
If the size of the database with everyone on it would cause it to crumble, and be susceptible to malfeasance and errors, then at 7% of the population these problems exist already or will become serious very soon.
The detection rate directly via the NDNAD for all crime is actually quite low, public perception being bolstered by a small number of high profile crimes, detection of at least some of which didn't actually depend on the NDNAD. (The Genewatch site has details.)
The crime scene DNA database would be almost as effective as the NDNAD and any shortfall in detection would probably be more than balanced by the increase in public co-operation were the NDNAD to be scrapped. This is, however, difficult to assess because the Home Office has so far failed to make appropriately detailed figures available and has obfuscated the issue.
@ AC @ steogede
The recent ruling came from the European Court of Human Rights (associated with the European Convention on Human Rights to which the UK signed up and which Tories sometimes complain about). This is not the same as the EU.
Come on lets be brutally honest, people who dont want to be on there have something to hide and dont want to get caught out really.
Think of the amount of crimes that would be solved if DNA was found at every SOC and every single person in the country and all who entered had their DNA recorded.
We could have signs at every port like carparks do, Entry is at your own risk and we will keep your DNA for 100years after you enter the country. If you dont like it burger off somewhere else and leave our little island.
Who are you kidding? These days, you have no rights, and even if you did, and they got in the way, they'd charge you under anti-terrorism laws so they could do whatever they wanted. The ends justifies the means (TM George Bush).
"The United Kingdom thus also appears to be the only member State expressly to allow the systematic and indefinite retention of both profiles and samples of convicted persons." - That's because the UK is the only country in Europe trying to out do the Stasti & FSB in their surveillance and intimidation of the public.
The reason for delaying any order to delete records en-masse, is to allow the government time to establish contracts for the offshore retention of such data, whilst still claiming compliance with the European directive. Extraordinary rendition anyone?
... if you are proved innocent they will just move your entry in the database to the 'deleted persons' database. Think of it as a 10TB Recycle Bin.
Then they will draft some guidelines/leglisation that says something like "access to the Deleted Persons Database shall be protected by a warrant only to be granted by a senior Police Officer, and shall be restricted to cases where extensive searching of the 'active database' has proved fruitless."
That will get the Human Rights brigade off their back. And you'll be just as fecked then as you are now.
Mine's the one with North Korea Residents Visa application form in the pocket.
Give up. Just comply. Resistance is futile.
"Because despite the best intentions of an investigating officer, there is going to be an assumption that because I am on the database I am likely to be a criminal."
I don't think that's the only concern - for a start people make mistakes (samples get mixed up/techs don't do their job properly). at the same time just because they find my hear at the scene of a crime I don't won't the police turning up at my work for questions/or at my home at 6am and me being prime suspect because they have nothing else to go on.
<<<privacy>>> is a crucial human right and we shouldn't let them scare us into giving it away.
Thanks to The Register, I sent off my letter yesterday to the local chief constable. I had my DNA and fingerprints taken after being arrested by dishonest and corrupt police, evidently at the behest of an ex-policeman who had assaulted me twice and subjected me to harassment for more than five years. A copy of the text of the letter is available at the end of a page on Sussex Police: www.ggm11.plus.com/police.htm
I'd love to see Wacky Jacqui's face when one of her slaves, uh, I mean, subordinates walks into her office and says "We've got a problem Home Secretary. Several of our chief constables are asking what they should do about DNA records on the database as a result of a massive increase in the number of innocent people asking for their records to be deleted in accordance with the unanimous judgement by the European Court of Human Rights. What should I advise the Chief Constables to do?"
I would give my right arm and leg to be a fly on the wall if that were to happen..I can see her scowling now, and obstinate attiude breaking through.
Sack the b**ch and sack her now.
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