DNA
Has been in the news with the magnanimous decision by the government to abide by the Court of Human Rights Decision to destroy the DNA data of innocent individuals that still resides in the DNA database; gosh how nice of them. Of course this being a police state they're not simply removing the data of all unconvicted people straight away, oh no they're going to keep it on record for at least 6 years from the arrest date for minor offences, 12 years for major ones.
Although in no funny what is amusing is the excuses that the sympathisers are trying to use to explain why the data shouldn't be removed at all. An example of which can be found in the Telegraph
Mark Dixie was arrested after a brawl in the pub where he worked and had his DNA taken.Yeah follow the timeline there. Now if he'd had his DNA taken at the time of the brawl, then had it retained and then it was discovered at a murder scene and used to arrest him you have an argument.
He was not convicted but his profile remained on the database. Within five hours, he was arrested for the murder of 18-year-old Sally Ann Bowman nine months earlier.
However all this presents is the case that DNA results should be compared to DNA evidence from past crime scenes to check for a match. Something I would have expected to be done anyway. For legal comparison consider an officer stopping a car for erratic driving and checking on the licence plate to see if it was stolen or has unpaid fines attached to it. That's not retention of a person's DNA that's retention of evidence from a crime scene.
So as I've said there's an argument that DNA evidence retained could lead to an arrest in the future, but oddly advocates seem to be missing or unwilling to use that point. Perhaps because it would draw too much attention to the method of operation of the database itself; how is the data stored, what methods are in place to prevent corruption of data, who has access to it?
It might also lead to an bias - your DNA was at the crime scene now we're going to work out how you did it. For a scenario that could lead to this consider travelling by train, or bus or any public transport. You're sat in a chair and you leave a hair (and follicle) behind. You get off the train and someone else gets on and sits in your seat transferring the hair to their coat. They get off the train and are murdered. Congratulations you're now Prime Suspect because your DNA was found at the scene and it's up to you to prove why it was there for purely innocent reasons with the repetition of "I don't know" probably being the result.
Meanwhile the real killer gets away because all resources are directed to find out 'how you dun it'.
It's flawed technically and it's flawed morally, but heck when has that stopped any government?
5 comments:
I really don't get what the big deal is about having my DNA on file. I mean, I didn't do anything wrong, so whether my DNA is in the database or not is irrelevant. What's the problem?
To an extent it's the principle of the thing, the government should only hold the minimum amount of information about us that it requires to function. Holding data 'just in case' falls outside that principle.
It also get tied in with the National ID card scheme which again wants to record a lot of information the government simply shouldn't require and add in biometric information and it's a short step to registering DNA profiles at birth while you're at it.
In essence you're paraphrasing "innocent people have nothing to hide" which is fine provided that not only do you trust the people making and applying the rules now, but also everyone else in the future.
Because remember they're the ones defining innocence and not you and they can change that whenever they like.
I see. So the issue is how paranoid you are?
To an extent. I wouldn't run off with conspiracy theories, but there is historical precedent for various form of identification schemes being misused or expanding.
And we can already see how laws against terrorism are being applied outside the spirit in which they were created, so why would anyone trust anyone in power who states "Don't worry about this"?
Having your DNA on the database isn't a problem... until someone with DNA that matches against yours (which is about one in ten million, so that's six people in this country alone) kidnaps and rapes a small child, your DNA turns up on file, the detective investigating the case lets his files be photographed by the press, and the angry mob turns up at your house and burns it down.
Altogether it may sound pretty unlikely, but every one of those connections has happened individually. DNA evidence is fine for putting someone who you already have reason to suspect at the crime scene, but when you start fishing for matches based on widespread records, it becomes useless as evidence.
The trust issue, of course, is what happens when they start using people's DNA records for genetic profiling. Ooh, your genes show a tendency for political dissent and risk-taking, so now you'll be stalked by the police for the rest of your life. Or more plausibly, what happens when the BNP gets in and they start using it for racial profiling? If you have black ancestry five or six generations back it won't show in your skin colour or accent, but in your DNA it sticks out like a sore thumb. If you let your DNA be kept on record, you're gambling on this not happening within your lifetime, and maybe even in your children's lifetimes.
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