Government ’ s “ clumsy , indiscriminate and disproportionate ” approach to DNA retention

Innocent people who have been arrested, but never convicted of a crime, will have their DNA records stored on the national database for a period of six years under plans unveiled in the government’s new Crime and Security Bill. The Bill, presented to parliament by Home Secretary Alan Johnson on 19 November 2009, also includes a number of new rules for the collection, retention and use of DNA and fingerprints in England and Wales. These new measures are belatedly being introduced in response to the December 2008 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) landmark judgment in the case of S and Marper v the United Kingdom. The court ruled that the UK government’s policy of indefinitely retaining the DNA of everyone arrested is unlawful. The Bill’s six-year time limit aims to address this finding, but civil liberties groups have called the response inadequate and criticised the overtly draconian nature of the policy. A Liberty report published in January 2010 described the new proposals as “wholly disproportionate” and “a thinly veiled attempt to continue to retain the DNA of innocent people for as long as the Government believes it can get away with.” [1] The DNA database is also the subject of a highly critical report published in November 2009 by the UK government’s advisory body, the Human Genetics Commission. The report found that police are routinely arresting people simply to obtain a DNA sample; that black men aged 18-35 are “highly over-represented” in the database; that unchecked “function creep” has severely altered the database’s role; and that there is little concrete evidence to identify its “forensic utility.”