UK DNA Database Stores Samples Illegally

The UK citizens who had been in the past accused of crimes they hadn't committed asked for the British government to remove their fingerprints and DNA records from the files stored in the national DNA Database. Years later, they found that their records were still on-line, so they sought justice in court, where 17 judges unanimously decided they were right and awarded them 42,000 Euros ($53,000) in compensations.
 

Jacqui Smith, UK Home Secretary, said that the decision the court made was very "disappointing" and that "DNA and fingerprinting is vital to the fight against crime, providing the police with more than 3,500 matches a month. The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgment."
 

Civil liberties groups, such as Liberty, expressed their satisfaction with the decision, saying that authorities in any country shouldn't have the legal right to treat all their citizens as criminals, even those who were proven innocent of the allegations against them. "The DNA profiles of roughly 85,000 innocent people should be taken off the National DNA Database. The decision will require the UK government to reconsider its policies under which the DNA of innocent individuals is permanently retained by police," the group says in a statement.
 

"From May 2001 to December 2005, 200,000 DNA samples were retained on the National DNA Database which would previously have had to be removed as they were taken from people charged but not convicted of offenses. Of these, about 8,500 profiles of individuals have been linked with crime scene profiles involving nearly 14,000 offenses," argues Association of Chief Police Officers representative, Chris Sims.
 

Holding such information once the individual who was wrongfully accused has asked for its deletion should be considered a crime in itself, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights says. "The court was struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention. The powers of retention of the fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of persons suspected but not convicted of offenses failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests," the ruling says.