Judge wants everyone in UK on DNA database

A UK judge has argued that every single person in the UK, including visitors, should have their DNA stored in the central database.

Lord Chief Justice Sedley, one of England's most experienced appeal court judges, described the country's current system as "indefensible".

He said expanding the existing database to cover the whole population had "serious but manageable implications".

But he warned that putting everybody's DNA on file should be "for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention".

"Where we are at the moment is indefensible," Sir Stephen Sedley told the BBC.

"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 also means that a great many people who are walking the streets, and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free."

Of course, there are many of us who would question whether or not a person should be entered on to the police database simply on the grounds of having once been in the hands of the police, rather than having one's DNA stored because one has actually committed a crime. Indeed, the Criminal Justice and Police Act of 2001 ordered that police must destroy the DNA of any person not found guilty of a crime. I am not sure if Sedley is implying that this has not been complied with.

Nevertheless, Lord Chief Justice Sedley raises an interesting point. Are we prepared to give up such a large degree of our privacy - even if you have never committed an actual crime - in order to aid crime prevention?

Britain's population are already under more surveillance than any other country in the world, with cameras watching us for large periods of every day if you enter any public space or use most motorways. This obsession with collecting information "in case" a crime is committed is reflected in the huge DNA database the country has already collated.

Britain's 12-year-old DNA database is the largest of any country in the world, growing by 30,000 samples a month. According to the Home Office website, 5.2% of the UK population is on the database, compared with 0.5% in the US.

The data is taken from suspect criminals or scenes of crime and there are currently 4m profiles held.

I can well understand a wish to have a list of the DNA of all persons guilty of violent crimes or serious sexual offences in order to aid quick apprehension in the event of a serious crime, but to ask that the entire country give up their DNA and render themselves as potential suspects is a seriously draconian measure.

To argue that those who have nothing to hide also have nothing to fear is to rather miss the point.

Today, Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights organisation Liberty, warned against potential changes to how and when British authorities collected DNA data.

"The DNA debate reveals just how casual some people have become about the value of personal privacy," she said.

"A database of every man, woman and child in the country is a chilling proposal, ripe for indignity, error and abuse."

Lord Chief Justice Sedley is arguing that it unfair that some people are caught up in the database, whilst others have escaped it, and coming to the conclusion that the fairest thing is that we all submit to it. I would argue the opposite. As stated in the Criminal Justice and Police Act of 2001, I would suggest that only persons convicted of crimes should be on the database.

However, Sedley gives a good example of the ways in which authorities increase their powers. They always begin by introducing laws which apply specifically to certain persons in society which we would all agree deserve special attention; usually terrorists and paedophiles.

Then, this law is inevitably expanded to include the rest of us.

The argument that giving police certain powers would reduce crime is one that we can all agree with. However, there is a balance to be struck between protecting us from crime and from making all of us potential suspects.

If I have nothing to hide then, the argument goes, I should have no objection.

However, if you take that argument to it's logical conclusion, then one should have no problem with the police, the taxman or any other government body reading your email and opening your letters. Perhaps even having a little sneaky look at your credit card details to see what you're spending your money on.

It's a sign of the recently passed Tony-Blair-times that this judge can even propose something as draconian as this without being shouted down.

Indeed, The Home Office minister Tony McNulty fell over himself to agree with the judge:

"I think we are broadly sympathetic to the thrust of what he [the judge] has said.

"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 underestimate the practicalities, logistics and huge civil liberties and ethics issue around that.

"There is no government plans to go to a compulsory database now or in the foreseeable future."

So, McNulty, is "broadly sympathetic" to the judge's draconian wish. Practicalities and logistics and those fiddly little things like "ethics" are the only thing holding the government back. Surely, if the government were concerned about "civil liberties and ethics", then it could hardly state that it is "broadly sympathetic" to this call?

Any real concern for civil liberties and ethics would call on one to denounce the call.

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