As part of my new job, I have to write a briefing-paper-type-thing on the UK National DNA Database (NDNAD). It's all quite insane.
A bit of background info: The NDNAD has existed in the UK for over 10 years, and most countries in the world have something similar: DNA samples are taken from convicted criminals, from which some company extracts a DNA profile, which is then stored on a database. When a new crime appears, they take the DNA found on the crime scene, and stick it in the database to see it if matches with any of the criminals DNA.
It can also work in different ways, using DNA to exonerate someone, or using some new criminal's DNA to solve an old unresolved case, or putting in a crime scene DNA and finding it matches to some criminal already in the database. So far so good.
In the UK, however, the governemnt has decided it would be a good idea to take the DNA of every single person who is arrested, for any kind of crime, whether they are later found guilty or not. And of course, their DNA profile is stored on the database... for ever. Obvisouly, this includes children, as long as they're over 10 years old, cos we're nice like that.
This has been going on for 7 years now. The result is that the NDNAD has over 4 million profiles on it, though some are duplicates so maybe only 2-3 million "unique" profiles. 40% of the UK's black men population is on the database, as opposed to 8% for whites. 25% of the database's entries are for under-18s.
Obviously this raises questions: about racism, about ethics, about the concept of being innocent until proven guilty. Theses are the "obvious" problems.
There are some more pernicious ones too, though. This being the UK, all the DNA extraction is done by private companies, who can keep the DNA profiles and samples they extract for ever. There have been cases of industrial espionage and DNA theft in those companies. These companies have also done some research on the DNA samples they hold, for exemple to discover if you can tell someone's ethnic origin through their DNA (Answer: yes, you can. As well as their approximate age, sex, genetic disorders and propensity for certain diseases).
As for the effectiveness of the Database, it's only really useful in volume crimes (like burglary), or murder and rape. In total, DNA investigation is used in 0.8% of all criminal investigations.
The UK being in the EU, however, some people have cleverly taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing its an invasion of privacy to have one's DNA kept on record eventhough one is innocent. The tabloids are screaming that Brussels (or Strasbourg, in this case) is pissing all over the UK's sovereignty, eventhough the judgment won't come out for a year. Were it negative, the UK would be forced to destroy all the DNA samples and profiles of people that weren't convicted of a crime.
The only alternative, which many people argue for, is to have everyone on the database, all of the UK's population, innocent and guilty.
Personally, I hope the ECHR says its illegal, and the UK is forced to destroy all the innocent's people DNA samples, like they do in most countries (including the US). The implications of a governemnt holding all of its citizens DNA information is slightly scary.
But I'm a commie liberal, so it's obvious I'd think like this. What do you think?
Edited, Mar 12th 2008 12:12pm by RedPhoenixxx