I take it all back europe your sins are forgiven :)

The EU keep proving itself as a welcomed dose of sanity compared to the UK's over reaching abuse of powers. Fingers crossed the common sense will linger for at least a decade or two...

That our very freedom is being protected not by our elected officials but by the House of Lords and the European Court of Human rights.

The irony is not lost on me.

Score one for the little guy.

Sounds like a victory for common sense and decency. Great stuff.

However, I must admit that there is a part of me that simply doesn't trust our government, or our police force.

We've all seen in recent years how our authoritarian and draconian government have 'turned' our police force against the public they serve. In my mind, and it brings me pain to say it, the police are now 'the enemy of the state', second only to our goverment.

Are the police these days not simply an instrument of government to crack down on it's public, removing free choice and free will? Are they not simply government sanctioned censors? ("You can't say that. You can do that. You can't think that. You can't take that photograph here." etc.) It seems to me they are.

Our government/police (I've concatenated the two words, because I now believe them to be one and the same) have, it seems, quite literally taken leave of thier senses. One local force in Scotland has taken it upon themselves (they presumably see it as their responsibility) to hand out flip-flops to local drunk women out on the town "because they might hurt themselves while walking home without some sensible footware". Meanwhile, your house is getting burgled, while some copper on the high-street is saying "Ooh, you look like a size 5 love, and this colour matches your skirt beautifully!"

And therefore, with a heavy heart, I have to say, that even with this ruling in the European courts, I simply do not trust our police or government to delete this information from their databases. They simply won't do it. It would kill them to do it. What they will probably do, in some self-righteous sense of warped logic, is create a second database to hold the details of those individuals who have had their information 'deleted'. In their minds, these people are not 'innocents'. They are merely people who they 'failed to catch the first time'.

Of course, our governement will now appeal to the European courts, so we haven't heard the last of it. I have to say though, thank god for the european courts, at least, in this particular instance, because you certainly can't rely on our law lords to stick up for their own general public.

Viva la Europe! <--- cor, look at that! Three languages in three words! How european am I?!

I wonder how far I would get with this if I failed in defense of an IR35 judgement.

"The money will stay in my bank account whilst I carefully consider the judgement."

Fuck off wacky, and the rest of you. New Year New Gov.

So Wacky's response will be to DNA test everyone and it will be a criminal offence not too allow a DNA sample to be taken.

See no discrimination, just criminals.

Simple (Well in Wacky's mind anyway)

I know it's fashionable to bash the EU and the UK membership thereof, decrying the loss of sovereignty and national freedom blah blah blah....

Equally, however, it must be recognised that sometimes - just sometimes - our elected representatives utterly screw up and we need someone bigger and LESS accountable to rise above petty politics and set us straight. God only knows why the opposition parties didn't.

A 17-member unanimous verdict? That's a pretty clear slap for Nu Stalin^H^H^H^H^H^H Labour.

Looking in from the outside, I have to say that the British government scares the bejeesus out of me at times. The EU may come up with a lot of pointless rubbish, but they're usually spot on when it comes to human rights.

... a sensible decision from the European court... and a predictable retort from Smith as the mouth peice of the gov. They really don't give a stuff about our rights at all.

If only I believed that getting rid of this lot and replacing them with the other lot would make one jot of difference :(

ALTER TABLE DNAProfile

ADD Deleted BIT

IF DNAProfile.Conviction IS null

Start

SET Deleted = 1

END

And on the store proc...

WHERE Deleted <> 1

Which is great, all appropriate records are 'deleted' but with the handy fail-safe in case anyone deletes an incorrect record.

Top Stuff.

Anon because... well, you saw what happened to Mr Green, right?

Motion seconded - we NEED a Wacqui Jacqui icon!

Assuming that the admins of the DB are together enough to have some kind of backup strategy, then what are the technical implications of removing the information? I suppose they have to go through the backups and make sure the DNA profiles are deleted from those as well? Does that mean that someone has to go and update all the tape archives in secure off site storage too? How far back do they keep backups for, I wonder?

Mine's the one with the stack of "mislaid" CDs in the pocket.

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."

Edward Abbey

In this instance Michael Marper and "S" are true patriots.

By the vehemence of the statements of the European court - ' "failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests," and that the UK government "had overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard" '(copied from news.bbc.co.uk).

With this level of feeling from the Euro court, and given that it was HMG that was defending against this action, so they should have presented all their evidence, I think - and I hope - that our beloved leaders will have their work cut out getting an appeal to go through, but they will no doubt use the years of time that will be created by loathsome lawyers arguing about anything they can to justify millions in expenses, to ensure that the database is vastly bigger than it is now.

As was pointed out on the Radio 4 news today, the proportion of crimes solved by the DNA evidence is dropping fast - down 12% and 16% in consecutive years.

This next sentence is going to stick in my throat - I hope that the Tories get into power next time, they at least have the guts to stand up the specious crap that the Police use to justify their increasing abuse of powers (although with the shenanigans that went on with Mr Green, I think there are a large number of MPs starting to question whether they have become too big for their boots...you never know, leopards may change their spots)

Of course, even if they say that they have deleted the records of the innocent people from the database, how will they prove it? And will we believe them?

Don't write them all off just yet. The HoL voted down the 42 day detention and forced the HoC to backtrack. The HoL has its uses, and it would definitely be a shame if it was 'reformed' by NuLabour (especially when that means that they can stack the deck in their favour). Leave the HoL alone, they do have a purpose.

And as much as the EU suffers from over-eagerness and over-regulation more often than not, it does help us as consumers, us as common people, and us as innocents.

This judgment is a huge win for us. Yes, that means that sometimes suspects slip through the net, but FFS - keeping a DNA profile of someone who is clearly not a danger just because 'it's procedure, we have to do it to make any further issues simpler' is not on. I left countries with overbearing regimes because of this... don't make me leave the UK too.

Jaqui Smith is a "clear and present danger" to freedom in this country and should be fired as soon as possible.

You can't treat everybody as a criminal just on the off chance that they do something illegal at some indefinite time in the future. It's a policy based on fear and paranoia.

For the sake of the country, Gordon, grow some balls and fire the woman!

Great news!

This might just be the best thing to come out of Europe since sensible measurements.

Meanwhile, what's your legal position if you were convicted on the basis of DNA evidence that was retained illegally?

The European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU.

Think more Council Of Europe.

No need. She'll be out shortly. Alternatively until the Revolution, we could make do with the one I've used.

stunning likeness....

It does seem incredible that the judges in this country fail to protect us from the Nazi tactics of the state. They need to be reminded who pays them.

I'm waiting for the last buzzword to appear in context here - Machiavellian. We've had the rest.

We really, really need a Wacky Jacqui icon El Reg, sort it!

I think this is a great move, and i didn't see it coming. The first good thing to come out of Europe in forever. Let's hope the law is water tight and hermeticallyt sealed so there is no way around it!

After the police illegally took my fingerprints and DNA some years back for something I was never even charged with, I'll be glad to have some hope of finally having them wiped from their big brother databse.

This was, apparently, a unanimous verdict by the 17 Euro-beaks, so, hopefully, the chances of El Wacqui and her cohorts overturning this will be slim.

We all know, however, that El Wacqui will never submit to this ruling. The Gov't will just lodge appeal after appeal, wasting taxpayers money in the process, to ensure that the database stays.

On another point, If storing DNA profiles on an Über-Database is deemed "a disproportionate interference with the applicants' right to respect for private life", then that must surely call into question the legality of storing biometric data on the proposed NIR? There is little difference in function between being able to ID someone by their DNA (in the DNA database) and ID them by fingerprint (in the NIR).

Keep banging in the nails. Eventually the lid on the NuLabour coffin will be sealed and we can bury the whole sorry, snooping, bunch of them.

So the government and police have been found to be breaking the law. But they announce they are going to carry on breaking the law while they review the situation. How can that be tolerated?

By the way, the European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU.

Another victory for the paranoid and those that have something to hide.

You're crazy if you think this is a good thing. The judgment was based on discrimination, that is, it's possible that people on the DNAR will be discriminated against in favour of those who are not. Next step for HMG: remove all potential for discrimination by putting the whole UK populace on the DNAR...

@John Young - correct!

The European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU.

It rules on the European Convention on Human Rights.

The European Court of Justice is the European Union's court - ruling on EU Law.

I think the confusion of naming is deliberate so the EU mistakenly gets some good press.