Category Archives: DNA

I have blogged previously about the Lords amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Bill, which provided that guidelines should be produced to establish a procedure enabling people to find out what samples of their DNA and fingerprints are being held on government databases, and then to request that such samples be destroyed.

Yesterday, the amendment returned to the Commons for further consideration; predictably, the Labour party was heavily whipped against it, and it was defeated.

Lady Hanham, the Conservative peer who introduced the amendment in the Lords, had said that her aim in doing so was “to try to spark a national debate about the retention of samples and to inform the public about what information is being held on them.” If yesterday’s Commons debate was anything to go by, she has succeeded.

Indeed, Douglas Hogg, the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, who is a Queen’s Counsel and possessed of a formidable intellect, conducted a powerful debate with himself. Prefacing his contribution with the observation that he normally approached most criminal justice matters from “within the libertarian wing”, Hogg went on to discuss whether there was merit in a universal DNA database, containing the details of every individual in the country:

The advantage of a national database, leaving aside all other issues, is huge. It is not only the most effective single detective weapon currently available to the enforcement agencies but is a huge deterrent in itself. I did a case two or three years ago involving a very bad rape, and the rapist was discovered only because 10 years after the event the police were going through old samples that they then could not profile and now could and they happened to discover the rapist on the database.

If one projects such an idea forward, one appreciates that many potential criminals, such as rapists, will be conscious that they leave DNA samples on the site. That is a huge deterrent. It is not only a detective instrument but a deterrent, especially as the forensic scientists become more skilled in gathering DNA. Low-copy profile DNA, for example, can operate on very small samples, so such profiling is a huge deterrent as well as a detective instrument. I suspect that it is the single most effective measure that we can adopt to decrease crime.

On the other hand, I acknowledge that there are serious civil liberty issues to debate, although I am not persuaded by them. There is no question but that we need to debate them. There are huge costs involved and I have no doubt that there are huge practical difficulties to resolve. I have not come to an absolute conclusion, but we should not shut the door on the debate. The question of whether we should move gradually towards a national database is very important.

Hogg does have an argument, although, as someone who also comes from within the libertarian wing, I am not persuaded by it, and I told him as much when he intervened on me later in the debate:

Mr. Hogg: I entirely understand the point my hon. Friend is making. The lack of transparency is a powerful argument, as is the lack of consistency and perhaps the lack of a statutory basis for the arrangements. Bearing in mind the fact that all criminals were once people of good character—to use the technical phrase—is it a matter of principle to him that the DNA of an innocent person should not be on a database? If so, what is that principle?

Mr. Jones: Personally, I feel that as a matter of principle the DNA of an innocent individual should not be kept on the database. My view is that the database is a tool to be used in the fight against crime and there should not be a presumption that information about innocent individuals should be on such a database. There is of course a strong argument for putting every individual in the country on the DNA database. That is part of the debate. I happen to take the contrary view.

The essence of yesterday’s debate was whether guidelines should be produced to introduce greater consistency into the process for determining requests for the destruction of DNA samples held on the police database. However, several members were keen to widen it to the greater issue of the extent of the information that should be held.

It is entirely healthy that we should have this debate; the UK DNA database is the largest of its kind in the world. Details of over 5 percent of the population are now held on it; last month, the Home Office admitted that some 857,000 individuals on the database have no current convictions recorded against them.

Maybe Douglas Hogg is right, and we should be moving towards a universal database; however, it is certainly the case that we should now take the debate forward and discuss how extensive we want the database to be. The Government’s strategy of expanding it by stealth is ethically wrong and entirely unacceptable.

There was a significant victory for civil liberties in the Lords yesterday afternoon. A Conservative amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Bill requiring the Home Secretary to publish national guidelines establishing a procedure enabling people to find out what samples of their DNA and fingerprints are being held on government databases, and then to request that such samples be destroyed, was passed by a majority of 11.

The Conservative spokeswoman, Lady Hanham, set out the case for the amendment with admirable clarity:

“No one disputes the value of DNA and fingerprint information in identifying criminals and possibly terrorists, and that it has and will continue to make a useful contribution in pursuit of identifying and bringing to justice perpetrators of crime and terrorism. However, there is wide concern about the retention by the police of information on samples taken from a wide range of people during their inquiries which is then retained indefinitely on the police national computer.

“Few innocent people will resent helping the police by giving samples whether they are innocent at the time or subsequently found to be, but they question, as we do, the justification for their personal identification material being held and for it to be difficult to find out how they can have it removed from the police national computer. There is an additional factor in that such information can now be transferred to other EU countries. The general assumption in those countries is that anyone whose details are held on the database is guilty or at least suspected of being associated with crime. Transparency is needed.”

Given the narrowness of the Opposition majority, the Government is likely to try to reverse the amendment when the Bill returns to the Lords. However, it will have an uphill struggle constructing an intellectually coherent case for explaining why entirely innocent people should have their DNA retained on government computers with no right to have it removed, or even to find out what is being held.

Lady Hanham explained that at present, the discretion as to whether to delete DNA details resides entirely with the relevant chief constable. ACPO has established it own guidelines as to the “rare” circumstances in which DNA should be destroyed; they are, as Lady Hanham remarked, almost laughable, if a “case study” quoted on ACPO’s website is anything to go by:

“It is that if the police arrest every occupant of a building for murder following the discovery of a dead body and forcibly take DNA samples, but then discover that the dead body in fact died of natural causes and that no crime has been committed. That is then considered sufficiently a case where, possibly, DNA samples—taken from entirely innocent people—might be destroyed. The number of similar cases will not be enormous.”

No, they won’t. So, under the present rules, your chances of getting your DNA deleted won’t be enormous, either.