statism watch

The US is drawing up a parallel policy of harvesting DNA at time of arrest. Canada, too, has its own version although it doesn’t seem yet to have metastatized into the sort of cancerous growth that the UK DNA database has become. However, that’s not to suggest that the Canadian police don’t want to expand it – they’re on record as being in favour of expansion. DNA is being collected at the US border if you’re ’suspected’ of a crime. No judge, no jury, you’re just going to be well-monitored domestic chattel in a biometric control grid. Everywhere! The time to speak out is now, is passing.

Flashback: UK: Terror ’suspects’ could remain on DNA database for life, innocents get 6 years | UK: Home Office climbs down over keeping DNA records on innocent | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | UK: DNA details of 1.1m children on database | Controversial US measure would require DNA sampling at arrest | Police to demand blood, urine at roadside stops | Newborn Blood-Storage Law Stirs Fears of DNA Warehouse | Man spends 18 hours in police cell and has his DNA taken for ‘dropping an apple core’ | Widen DNA dragnet: Police Chief Blair

Alan Travis, The Guardian
November 24, 2009

Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry will allege tomorrow.

The review of the national DNA database by the government’s human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.

The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight.

The highly critical report from the government’s advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ‑ nearing 1 million.

The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as “an ‘alien wedge’ of criminality”.

The crime and security bill published last week by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, proposes to keep DNA profiles of people arrested but not convicted of any offence on the database for six years. This follows a landmark European court judgment last December, ruling illegal the current blanket policy of indefinite retention of DNA profiles whether or not the person has been convicted of an offence.

It adds that parliament never formally debated the establishment of the DNA database. Its evolution involved a “function creep” from being used to confirm police suspicions to identifying suspects. This resulted in the addition of more and more profiles without being clearly matched by an improvement in convictions.

The chairman of the commission, Prof Jonathan Montgomery, said: “It’s now become pretty routine to take DNA samples on arrest. So large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they’ve been arrested.”

He said the commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. “It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained,” said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.

The report says there is very little concrete evidence on the importance of the DNA match in leading to a conviction and whether the suspect would have been identified by other means anyway.

It argues the database creates “pre-suspects” who are the first to be checked whenever a new crime is entered. This leads to a “no smoke without fire” culture that may be pervasive and hard to overcome.

Professor Montgomery says in his foreword to the report that the DNA profiles of over three-quarters of young black men between 18 to 35 are recorded on the database. But the report itself says that such precise figures are unreliable because the categorisation of ethnicity depends entirely on the perception of the arresting officer: “The extreme preponderance of young black males on the database is [however] undeniable,” says the commission and recommends that an equality impact statement be drawn up when legislation is introduced putting the database on a statutory footing.

The latest Home Office estimate for the number of innocent people on the DNA database is 980,000 according to the crime and security bill regulatory impact assessment published last Friday. This is a sharp rise compared with the 850,000 estimate of the DNA profiles of those who have been arrested but not charged or convicted published at the time of the European court of human rights ruling last year.

Source | See Also under DNA: UK: Terror ’suspects’ could remain on DNA database for life, innocents get 6 years | Plant experts unveil DNA barcode | Judge OKs Challenge to Human-Gene Patents | UK: Home Office climbs down over keeping DNA records on innocent | IBM Building Personal DNA Reader | UK: Pilot project for DNA, isotope analysis of immigrants ‘deeply flawed’ | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | Newborn’s Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | Genetically modified monkeys pass traits to offspring | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Meet – and eat – the modified Atlantic salmon | UK: Police to destroy DNA profiles of 800,000 innocent people | UK: DNA pioneer Alec Jeffreys: drop innocent from database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes | UK: Government plans to keep DNA samples of innocent | UK: DNA details of 1.1m children on database | UK House of Lords warns over ’surveillance state’ | Controversial US measure would require DNA sampling at arrest | GM Crops Climb to Nearly One-Tenth of Global Crop Production | European court rules DNA database breaches human rights | Sick babies denied treatment in DNA row | Genetically engineered meal close to your table | Experts set to revisit global cloning ban | DNA of ‘blameless’ youths stored | UK DNA database turns ‘innocents into criminals’, warns watchdog | The evolution of baby-making | Scientists: Humans and machines will merge in future | Newborn Blood-Storage Law Stirs Fears of DNA Warehouse | Man spends 18 hours in police cell and has his DNA taken for ‘dropping an apple core’ | Widen DNA dragnet: Police Chief Blair

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 9:16 am and is filed under appropriation, culture, eugenics, police, privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.