back to article More than 5 million people now on DNA database

The estimated number of people whose DNA profile is stored by the government has broken the five million mark for the first time. Some 5,094,568 individuals are now thought to be represented on the National DNA Database, according to updated figures. The total accounts for an estimated replication rate of 13.8 per cent. The …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Potential problem here

    If the DNA is held un-lawfully on the database, then can it be used as evidence in court anyway?

    If not, does it make the whole thing a gargantuan waste of time and resources?

  2. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Who's the criminal ?

    There's a certain irony to the police breaking the law to record those who have not broken the law.

    A simple "Don't" from the Home Office, Cabinet or PM would stop the practice and failure to stop it makes the government complicit in this illegality. The hypocrites in government frequently complain about other nations failing to respect Human Rights but are slow and reluctant to protect such rights themselves. Hopefully they will be punished for it, those illegally recorded compensated.

    I personally cannot see why anyone decent would want to keep New Labour in power come next election. Ah, the happy, joyful days of, "Things can only get better".

    In three weeks time there will be many bowing heads in silent respect for those who gave their lives to defend liberty, freedom and rights. It will be hard to say they did not give their lives in vain. It's a tragic and sorry state of affairs.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    if

    If it's illegal then why havn't the cabinet been arrested?

  4. Mark Jan
    Big Brother

    Stalin would be proud!

    Za-NuLabia - bunch of lying tw@ts.

    Stalin would indeed be proud.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Agatha Christie

    Well there <1000 murders a year in the UK, of which most are known to the victim and whose identity is not in doubt, so lets say 200 where DNA would help. And some 7000 rapes where the victim doesn't know the attacker*

    So there must be hundreds and hundreds of criminals for each DNA related crime.

    I know, it's Murder on the Orient Express, EVERYONE DID IT, they all took turns stabbing/shafting the victim.

    Thank god we have all these domestic extremists on file!

  6. dunncha
    Stop

    Police State here we come

    Isn't it funny the way a Government can ignore the rule of law and when we do it we are DNA'ed, Fined, Locked up and have our picture circulated as a troublemaker?

    This country is going to hell

  7. MinionZero
    WTF?

    Obsessive Paranoid Control Freaks in power...

    Is everyone in the UK a criminal?

    It seems hardly a day can go by now without us suffering ever more examples of the control freaks obsessive need for ever more data, DNA and evidence against us all.

    So is everyone a criminal ... innocent until proven guilty?

    If the government was a person, they would be in danger of being labeled a Paranoid Schizophrenic and then sectioned under the mental health act!

    But its even worse than that, because we also need to add in their relentless Narcissistic need for power and greed with so little empathy for all of us and so their collective behavior adds up to be one hell of a scary pattern of overall behavior.

    If we are all criminals then why don't they just put us all under country wide arrest?. (Kind of like house arrest, but instead turning the whole UK into an open air prison).

    Where the hell is this all going?!

  8. bob 46

    refuse sample?

    What happens if you are arrested, but refuse to give a dna sample unless found guilty? Can you do that? Will they take it by force?

    Just curious

  9. Scott 19
    Thumb Down

    Chaneg in policy

    I think the old saying "Money where you mouth is" should be placed into law somewhere, forcing members of parliment and the house of lords to be the first to enter there details into any form of DB or such, "Nothing to Hide, nothing to fear Mr Brown, wheres your DNA?"

    Anyone now where i can buy a house that can be built under the sea, i think international waters start 25 miles off the coast and was thinking of moving.

  10. Steven Jones

    @AC 11:44

    It's not necessary to use the DNA on the database in a criminal case - a suspect will be re-tested anyway. Databases have errors in them so that would be an essential check. What the DNA database is used for in the first place is to identify suspects - as far as I know, inadmissable evidence can be rejected in court, but if the original suspicion was raised through illicit means, but not used as evidence in court, then that's a wholly different thing.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Not only illegal

    its also pointless. If the detection rates based on DNA matching is down, then this project is a failure.

    Apparantly thieves now get around this by sprinkling false DNA all over the crime scene. So, if you see some one going out at night with a full hoover bag under their arm, are they going equipped to commit a crime?

    Somewhere in the last 12 years we lost all huma rights and became a (failed) police state: crime is up, but we are all getting DNA recorded, videoed where ever we go, and stop+searching of kids is now routine.

    Ohh the choise of icon: Black helicopters of Big Brother?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @A.C 12:04

    And have their DNA stored indefinitely...

  13. Sir Runcible Spoon
    FAIL

    12345

    Can someone explain the duplication issue a bit?

    Surely if DNA is supposed to be unique, they should be able to find duplicate records and amalgamate/delete them?

    What am I missing?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Thanks for the reply Steven

    So it's a case of the Police will use illegal means to identify suspects then see if they can get some evidence to prosecute with.

    That doesn't fill me with confinence, I have to say.

  15. Tom 7

    Love it

    The more people on the database means more matches to the hair I collect from hairdressers and other dna sources like cutlery in restaurants, toilets etc so when I do commit my perfect crime there will be so many culprits with nothing to hide I might just die laughing before I can spend my ill gotten gains!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where is the judiciary?

    There was a time when excesses like this couldn't have hoped to get past our judges. If they're letting all this nonsense through our courts, then they're even more to blame than the police. The same goes for juries - I would never, as a juror, convict anyone on DNA evidence alone, simply because it's Bad Science.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IHNTA, IJLTS...

    Thus we see governmet integrity in action.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @bob 46

    Yes, they will use force. And it is an offence punishable by up to two years in prison to refuse.

  19. Tony S
    Big Brother

    @AC 15:54

    "And it is an offence punishable by up to two years in prison to refuse"

    Which then means that you are a criminal so they have every right to take your DNA and store it for ever. If they try really hard, they could make everyone in the UK a crim (apart from theirselves of course).

    1984 - G. Orwell didn't predict the half of it.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Time to Put Right Existing Wrongs is Not Time to Commit More Wrongs

    I am not a lawyer, and I haven't actually read the relevant ruling, but I would have thought the time allowed for the UK to get in compliance with the ruling isn't supposed to be taken as permission to violate yet more innocent people's rights.

    It's like the UK State got caught with its fingers in the till. Given time to repay what it's stolen so far, the State decides to carry on taking from the till. But such theft was never legal in the first place, and is no less illegal now. Time to repay is not time to continue stealing.

    Likewise, while the UK State has been allowed some time in which to discontinue illegally keeping DNA records of innocent people, the State has clearly decided to continue adding DNA records of innocent people, even though it knows it's illegal. It was illegal before the ruling, and it's just as illegal now.

    This demonstrates a clear willingness, on the part of the police, Home Office, Home Secretaries past and present, etc, to violate innocent people's human rights in clear, deliberate breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act.

    Flames, because I am outraged.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @Sir Runcible Spoon

    The reason that there a duplicates on the database is that

    Only patterns of short tandem repeats are stored in the NDNAD – not a person's full genomic sequence. Currently the ten loci of the SGM+ system are analysed, resulting in a string of 20 numbers, being two allele repeats from each of the ten loci. Amelogenin is used for a rapid test of a donor's sex.

    However, individuals' skin or blood samples are also kept permanently linked to the database and can contain complete genetic information. Because DNA is inherited, the database can also be used to indirectly identify many others in the population related to a database subject. Stored samples can also degrade and become useless, particularly those taken with dry brushes and swabs.

    However this will give chance of duplication 1 in 5 million case

  22. Swarthy
    WTF?

    No title

    "All suspects are Gulty. Period. If they weren't guilty they wouldn't be suspects, now would they?"

    I wish I could remeber the source.

  23. Steve 114
    Coat

    Come over cleanly

    I happily put mine on the 'National Geographic' genographic scheme - interesting result. Police are as welcome to see it as they are to come and talk to me (Sometimes wish they would, as I ain't done anything, honest). Mine's the one with the hair that could only be mine - but where?

  24. Andy Bright
    Grenade

    Everyone is a criminal?

    Here's a direct quote for you from the Guardian,

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/28/dna-database-innocent-profiles

    "Ministers said they wanted to keep the profiles of innocent people for between six and 12 years depending on the seriousness of the offence."

    Riddle me that one batman. Anyone failing to see an abuse of power here? Let me translate this for you.

    If the police swab your DNA during a period of time that a serious crime is being investigated, your DNA can be stored for 6-12 years. Your link to this crime might be as strong as living in the same area it was committed, say London. The police may know you haven't committed the crime, in fact they probably do know this. But a serious crime was committed, your unrelated DNA was taken and therefore logically they can keep this for a decade if they choose. No don't argue, it's there in black on white. We want to keep the profiles of innocent people (that means people who've committed no crime) for a period of 6-12 years depending on the seriousness of the offense they haven't committed.

    So why do ministers believe the entire population of Britain are criminals simply biding their time, waiting for the appropriate crime to make itself available? Take a look at their own behaviour. It's often said a thief will suspect everyone else of being thieves.

    Interesting isn't it. Next you'll be saying something like innocent unless proven guilty. Oh how naive you are. Innocent UNTIL proven guilty.. by the DNA we just happen to have on file. You can trust us not to contaminate a crime scene with your DNA, after all when has government tech or the UK police force ever made a mistake in the past? 'You may use the other side of the paper if you run out of space' is the quote that springs to mind.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Andy Bright

    "So why do ministers believe the entire population of Britain are criminals simply biding their time, waiting for the appropriate crime to make itself available?"

    Because they themselves are prone to criminality - just look at the expenses claims. Apparently it's ok just to say sorry and pay it back. Try that in the real world. "'m sorry Dixons, I ramraided your store and stole a whole load of LCD tvs but it's OK because I'm sorry. Here's the remains. We're good now no?"

    And of course the police say they're going to investigate and strangely find nothing worth bringing any charges.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    good grief

    there are better countries out there to live in

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