One in 10 Britons on police DNA database

Parliamentary reporter, Computing, Wednesday 28 October 2009 at 09:47:00

More than 5.5 million records held on controversial system

One in 10 Britons has a profile stored on the police DNA database, according
to the latest Conservative Party claim based on Home Office figures.

Shadow Home Office minister James Brokenshire said the latest statistics
showed 5,910,172 profiles on the database on 15 October of which 5,532,847 had
been taken by police forces in England and Wales from a population totalling 54
million.

He said the government is "obsessed with growing the DNA database for the
sake of it regardless of guilt or innocence" and is dragging its feet complying
with the European Court of Human Rights ruling that its approach is "unlawful".

Right-wing pressure group The Taxpayers Alliance has also published a poll
which suggested four in five people fear freedoms are being eroded in Britain.

In reply to one question in the poll, conducted by PoliticsHome, 86 per cent
of people think the government cannot be trusted to keep personal information
files safe, up from 58 per cent seven years ago.

Director Alex Deane said the results show people feel freedoms are being
eroded. "The government continues to pursue expensive and invasive surveillance
methods that serve only to create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding
citizens,? he said.

The concern about the security of information was highest (78 per cent) among
Tories and lowest (36 per cent) among Labour voters.

The Home Office has announced that proposals to make the DNA database comply
with the European Court of Human Rights ruling will be included in the Queen's
Speech, that will set out the government's legislative programme for the last
session of parliament before the General Election next year.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2252112/britons-police-dna-database