At last, a positive reason rather than "They're not led by a One-Eyed Scottish Idiot"*. The Tories have announced that they will end the practice of retaining the DNA of the innocent.
This is something that has bugged me for ages. DNA matching is not perfect; nothing is. Mistakes do happen. So if you are in the subset of the innocent population that is on the database, you are forever at risk of having to prove your innocence. That, to me, is wrong. It is also illegal under European law. Neither, of course, is regarded by New Labour as being a persuasive reason to stop.
I have no problem with retaining the DNA samples of those found guilty. They chose to go on the database by committing a crime. The innocent can hardly choose "not to be wrongfully arrested".
Nor do I have a problem with taking a DNA sample from anyone who is arrested. This is a useful part of police investigative powers, allowing them to match such samples to samples taken from crime scenes in the past. There is a risk of a mismatch, but only once - not forever, so I regard it as reasonable and manageable. It means that those who have committed offences in the past know that they absolutely must keep their noses totally spotless for all time - no bad thing. Indeed, every single case that has been thrown at me in support of keeping all DNA samples forever have been ones where it is this type of comparison which yielded a match.
So I regard this as good news. If it is the start of a movement by the Tories towards libertarianism and freedom, then that would be even better.
*copyright J Clarkson Esq
For simplicity why not just go back to the situation pre-2001 where if the suspect was not charged or found not-guilty the entry on the database was simply deleted?
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty outrageous that even the pettiest of "crimes" results in a permanent entry in The Database.
Much as I'm pleased to have something to praise Dave's mob for, as you point out, this is illegal under EU law.
ReplyDeleteSo they are only really promising to obey the law of our governing body. Well, whoop-de-do.. :)
"...why not just go back to the situation pre-2001 where if the suspect was not charged or found not-guilty the entry on the database was simply deleted?"
That would be the smart, just thing to do. I doubt Call-Me-Dave will do it.