Children on DNA database are “suspects for life”
Posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 by Home Office WatchCategory: DNA
In the week that The Liverpool Daily Post reported that Merseyside Police have placed the details of a seven year old on the National DNA Database, we learn that more than a million of those registered on the national DNA database were still children when their details were added.
The Telegraph has this story:
“Official figures show that, since the DNA database was created, 1.07 million profiles of children have been added. This is nearly a quarter of the 4.4million profiles on the database. Anyone who comes into contact with the police, as an offender or a witness, can have a DNA sample taken for the database.
“Ministers and the police say the database is a vital tool in solving crimes, and has helped detectives crack major cases including murder and rape.
“A breakdown of the figures shows that the profiles of more 100,000 children had their DNA taken when they were under 13, and the profiles of more than half a million children were added to the database when they were aged between 13 and 15.
“In the past three years, 48,500 children under-13 and 204,666 children aged between 13 and 15 were added. The figures are far higher than previously thought as Government figures only estimate the number of children currently on the database. Official figures show that the profiles of 344,339 children have been included.”
Helen Wallace, from campaign group GeneWatch UK said, “The massive expansion of the DNA database treats hundred of thousands of young people as suspects for life. Their DNA could be used to track them or their relatives or to reveal private genetic information.”
Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne said that the Government are “making the world’s biggest DNA database by stealth.”
You can help our campaign to protect innocent people’s DNA by encouraging friends and family to sign our petition at http://ourcampaign.org.uk/dna
Related posts:
November 19th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
very good
November 21st, 2008 at 7:29 am
With the DNA database of millions including the innocent and children and CCTV surveillance watching our every move and increasing encroachment of the rights of the individual we are indeed becoming an Orwellian country so that the people are fearful of the Government that wants to probe every aspect of our lives and force upon us ID cards.
In years to come the genetic information of any uncooperative problematic individual or race of people in an Orwellian state could likely be used to eliminate that person or ethnic group.
Is that why the children and the innocent are kept on the DNA database a vital tool in solving any future problematic individual or a way to incriminate and send to prison the problematic individual spouting the unholy truth about the Government that seeks to control and index us all just like cattle?
Governments’ should be afraid of the people not the people afraid of their Government!
There is something terribly wrong with democracy that allows the servant to become the master and oppose the will of the people or endanger the people in wars or use the people like cash cows (motorists)
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Why should this come as a surprise? Allow a freedom (the capacity to dna sample anyone) and it will be abused. Not by everyone, not all of the time, but it will be abused.
I am proud to say that I argued against this sort of thing in the consultation by the Scottish Executive, and the police in Scotland now have limited powers in this regard. Those in the rest of the UK should wake up and reclaim their privacy.