LONDON, England - July 26, 2011 - The DNA of more than one million innocent people will not be wiped from police records, it has been revealed. Instead, the police will retain DNA profiles in anonymous form, leaving open the possibility of connecting them up with people's names.
The admission by MPs appears to break a Coalition commitment to delete all innocent profiles - apart from those accused of violent or sex crimes - from police databases. Civil liberties groups accused the government of a disgraceful breach of its promise to destroy innocent people’s DNA.
Currently in England and Wales, DNA profiles of everyone arrested for a recordable offense are retained by the police, regardless of whether they were charged or convicted. This means the national DNA database holds more than five million profiles, including one million people without any criminal convictions.
Experts say storing the DNA of innocent people gives them an unfair “presumption of guilt” in the eyes of the police.
The Coalition agreement last May said the government would “adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.” DNA samples from innocent people would be deleted, apart from those accused of sexual or violent offenses, which would be held for five years.
However, Home Office Minister James Brokenshire has now admitted to MPs on a committee that is considering the legislation, that police forces will retain innocent profiles. Brokenshire said he had gotten an agreement from the information watchdog that DNA profiles could be retained by forensic science laboratories.
This would mean that profiles would “be considered to have been deleted (even though the DNA profile record, minus the identification information, will still exist).” However, Brokenshire admitted that it would still be possible to identify the anonymous profiles.
Daniel Hamilton, a director at campaign group Big Brother Watch, said, “This is a disgraceful U-turn on the part of the government. Destroying physical DNA samples is a pointless gesture if the computer records are to be retained. Despite paying lip service to freedom and civil liberties, this government is fast proving itself to be every bit as illiberal as its predecessor.”
