The National DNA Database was set up in 1995, and contains profiles (taken from samples) recovered from crime scenes, and taken from anyone arrested for a recordable offence, even if they are not subsequently charged with any offence. Recordable crimes include such minor offences as begging and being drunk in a public place.
With an estimated 4.5 million samples, the NDNAD is the largest per capita database in the world, second in size only to the USA. The UK’s disproportionate and unfair policy means that hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including an estimated 40 000 innocent children, have their DNA permanently retained.
It also has an extremely discriminatory impact. An estimated 37% of black men and 77% of young black men had records on the DNA Database in 2006. There were 3.8 times more arrests of black people per head of population than of white people in 2007/08.
The S & Marper Case
Following a European Court of Human Rights judgment in December 2008, the UK government must now reconsider the policy under which the DNA of innocent individuals (those who have not been charged or cautioned) is permanently retained by police.
S & Marper, two Britons whose DNA was retained by police brought the legal challenge, claimed that their inclusion on the NDNAD continued to cast suspicion on them after they had been cleared of any wrong-doing.
Find out more about the judgment and what it means.
Government Consultation
In May 2009 the Government finally launched a consultation on DNA retention. The consultation was, however, fundamentally flawed. Instead of designing and consulting on a proportionate retention regime the Government has indicated that it plans to continue to hold the DNA of innocent people for six and some cases up to 12 years.
Liberty believes that to implement the ECHR judgment the Government needs to abandon blanket retention and turn to a more principled and logical approach.
Read
our response to the DNA Database consultation.
Privacy Victory
On 19 October the Home Office announced that the clauses on DNA retention would be dropped from the Policing and Crime Bill and reconsidered. The clauses provided a regulation power that would have allowed sweeping retention of innocents’ DNA to continue.
The Crime and Security Act
In November 2009 the Government introduced detailed DNA and fingerprint retention provisions in the Crime and Security Bill. Despite concerted opposition, this Bill was passed in the final stages of the 2009-2010 Parliament. As it was passed during the ‘washup’ process the Bill was never fully debated in both Houses of Parliament.
Under the Act the DNA of adults arrested but not convicted of any offence will be retained by the state for a blanket six year period.
We believe that this is disproportionate, discriminatory and arguably still breaches the right to privacy.
We will continue to work hard to get these provisions amended to ensure the UK has a more proportionate and human rights compliant DNA retention regime.
Read our Crime and Security Bill
briefing (PDF) for more detailed information.
Timeline
Read our
DNA Database Timeline for an overview of developments around DNA retention since 2001.
The future of DNA retention
In May 2010 the new Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition government published their 'Programme for Government', which contained a pledge to switch DNA retention to the Scottish model.
The Scottish system is based on allowing retention of DNA for those convicted or cautioned for serious offences such as sexual assault or violence.
Liberty has long campaigned and litigated for a smarter, fairer DNA retention regime - one that does not discriminate on the basis of race or age and does not sweep the innocent up with the guilty.
Although it is not perfect we welcome the commitment to adopt the protections in the Scottish model. We will be pushing to ensure that under the new model for DNA retention, innocents’ DNA will not be able to be stored indefinitely via the backdoor.
Read Liberty's full
Analysis of the Coalition Programme for Government (PDF)
