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Judge Says, Record DNA of Everyone In the UK
Many readers informed us about the opinion of Lord Justice Sedley, a senior UK Appeal Court judge, who said that everyone in the UK should have their DNA recorded in the national database — including visitors. Reader ChiefGeneralManager writes, "Sedley calls the current database 'indefensible' because it contains a hodge-podge mix of people, including children and those who have been in contact with the police. His view is that we should make it compulsory for all DNA to be recorded to remove this anomaly. The UK Information Commissioner has expressed some concerns, but not dismissed the idea outright." And reader john.wingfield adds, "Just under two weeks ago, the Independent reported that the Government has admitted that an eighth of all records on the DNA database are false, misspelled, or incorrect — over half a million records. This raises the possibility of a breach of the 4th data protection principle of the Data Protection Act 1998: 'Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.'"
You don't need an identity card when you have stored a sample of everyone's dna and dna analysis becomes very cheap, a la Gattacca.
This is what expects us.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
I thought this was done already. Which is why they keep pennies in circulation...
Summation 2
Why not? In the U.S., don't we already record fingerprints at birth? Let's just all do this.
If you're against this, you probably have something to hide and you should be prosecuted anyway. If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, so why you should care? After all, we need to be protected from the terrorists!
You can't be against this, because it will protect the children. After all, if we have their DNA and they're kidnapped, we'll be able to find them quicker. Will someone please think of the children?
*sigh*
I'm moving to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific to start my own country. Anyone care to join me?
My blog
I interpret this as 'because the police are arresting a disproprtionately high proportion of ethnic minorities and the contents of the DNA database reveals this, we should just profile everybody so that the apparent discrimination disappears'. Maybe they should try dealing with the apparent racism and/or social inequality rather than brushing it under the carpet?
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Not only does this help the UK achieve zero population growth, it also keeps meddling foreigners out of the country...
WHO'S ON THE DATABASE?
5.2% of UK population
Nearly 40% of black men
13% of Asian men
9% of white men
Source: Home Office and Census
Enuff said. When the remaining 91% are going to be DNA recorded, they start squirming. Majority of ethnic minorities kept quiet and bore it all....
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Delete the database.
I suggest, why bother keeping names at all if mispellings are such a hardship...
let me walk into the "******" ministry and identify my self with a cell sample.. it's just so much easier then!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
A lot of people stated they would refuse to vacation in the States anymore because of the fingerprinting at Customs. This is far, far worse.
Okay, I can see that the current situation of including people who aren't convicted of a crime is unfair, but to suggest that the only possible solution is to treat everyone as if they have convicted a crime?!
... at them?
How about we stop adding people to the database so easily in the first place.
I also love that for once, it's a judge proposing authoritarian measures, and Labour who are opposing it: A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said to expand the database would create "huge logistical and bureaucratic issues" and civil liberty concerns.
(For non-UK readers, Labour being the Government that have repeatedly brought in authoritarian measures, and plan bureaucratic nightmares like the national ID card scheme, ignoring any civil liberty concerns...)
Only a tiny sample of saliva, blood, semen
Hmm, if we are forced to all turn up to have our DNA taken, can we choose to spit, bleed or er
I hope someone else can adequately express my incredulity and disgust with this. Words are failing me right now. Hopefully Shami from Liberty and any decent MPs will have a few things to say about this.
Get your own free personal location tracker
In Scotland, DNA is only kept on record if you are convicted. If not, any DNA taken must be destroyed. This new (and insanely stupid) idea has already been rejected http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6979451.stm
And when everyone is a potential criminal.... NO ONE WILL BE! muhahaha. (sto.. adapted from Syndrome in the Incredibles)
I wonder how you would check whether the record of your DNA is up-to-date and correct. I certainly can't remember all my chromosomes.
Imagine "others" (read: companies) getting their hands on this database. Insurance companies will be thrilled to correlate the chromosomes to your likelihood of requiring said insurance.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
I'm not real familiar with the way the British courts work, but I know that in the US a tactic sometimes used by judges that want a law overturned is to simply enforce the letter of the law. The idea is that the law itself is so flawed that by enforcing it strictly and literally it becomes evident that the law should be changed. Similar thing happened recently where some congressmen tried to reinstitute the draft, the reasoning being that if it's important enough for US soldiers to fight and die in Iraq, then it's important enough for every eligible US citizen to join up. Of course, and this was their point, if it's not that important, then we shouldn't be there. Maybe this judge is making the same point about DNA profiling: either everyone has to be on record, which would raise some serious privacy and legal issues, or no DNA records are kept at all because there isn't a fair way to do it.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Senile old fart.
Let's start by asking why the police, politicians, rich, and famous all refuse to be on this database?
I'm sure there are quite a few of you that have had the experience of passing through Heathrow - and those of you have probably also had to do the cumbersome Gatwick-Heathrow exchange (or vice-versa) in order to reach connecting international and/or European flights.
From experience I know that whenever people do this exchange, they have to pass through customs and immigration where they declare that they are not expected to be in England for more than a few hours. Usually they have to present proof of a connecting boarding pass and sometimes, difficult questions can follow. Since they want to do this to "visitors," they'll probably mandate travellers passing through to go through this as well - even if they are not expected to remain in England.
While US air travel has become gruelling, I expect that the UK will rapidly surpass it with an invasive policy like this. I wonder how it will impact tourism and/or one of the largest connecting hubs in the world.
This will be a bonanza for lawyers, when people like me fight it every step of the way.
I'm sure this Sedley bloke hasn't been influenced by the prospect of ££££s for his chums.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
He should start with himself, then. *IF* he thinks it's such a good idea!
If they do try to put this motion in place then it is time to appeal to the European court of human rights. They have bitch-slapped governments for authoritarian crap before and they can do it again. If that doesn't work then it is time to take to the streets. Identity cards, detentions without trial, and now this, things have gone too far...
Fine. Just don't expect me to visit.
Besides, Paris has better airshows, and Germany, Spain, and Italy all have better F1 races. Guess I'll take my tourist dollars there instead.
So what do they do if you decline to provide a DNA sample?
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Imagine if Hitler had this, i bet this gives eugenics supporters a hardon
What about chimeras - people who have two different sets of DNA in the same body? They allegedly make up a small but not insignificant fraction of the population. How will the system deal with them?
The British Institute of Human Rights should be lobbying the government to reject this proposal, I suggest contacting their president, Sir Stephen Sedley to point this out.
Privacy concerns aside, before we even TALK about increasing the SIZE of the database, determine what is needed to improve the QUALITY of the data.
12.5% inaccuracy is pretty high. More bad data don't help!
If they could get some of the Page 3 Girls to creatively accept "DNA samples", this might work.
If not, could someone please post when this is actually put into force? It'll make my future travel plans easier if I can strike one more country off my list of places to visit.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Assuming UKG do this, I'm offering a prize of £10,000 for the first person to liberate a significant proportion of the data stored in this database, so I can give it to the press. I'll repeat this offer using my real name if it happens.
This offer won't make any hacker break the law, because they will be able to get 100 times as much from insurance companies and credit reference agencies, but hopefully it will make it more likely that leaks become public.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
will vanish, for the most part, if it requires giving a DNA sample to visit the country. This is not only intrusive, it is vile and disturbing on more levels than I care to go into this early in the morning. I, for one, would never visit the country if DNA sampling was required to enter.
:)
And let's go ahead and give a rest to that tired old bullshit about "If you have nothing to hide then..." Everyone has something they want hidden, even if they won't admit it. My argument is that, regardless of if I have something to hide or not, I _DO NOT TRUST ANY GOVERNMENT IN THIS WORLD_ with my DNA on file and for them to "protect" it while "only using it to solve crimes". Virtually all things that have been expressed in this manner are then perverted for some other use, above and beyond what the stated intent was. Someone in power will eventually decide they can use the database for other "good" and seek to extend their reach further and further into the homes and lives of all people - the criminal AND, especially, the INNOCENT.
I, for one, hope that the people of the United Kingdom will stand up against this complete and utter invasion of their lives and take back some control of the information that is connected to them. I also hope that the people of the United States and other countries (Australia, Canada, and many others) also stand up and take back control, because those so-called free countries many of us are living in are looking more and more like they're creeping into fascism and/or totalitarian or police states.
We must dissent.
(Kudos to all those who get the reference in my last line
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I feel so much safer now!
Phfft. You can forget me ever visiting the UK and spending my vacation dollars.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... you pretty much give DNA samples for free anywhere you go in public... Hair loss, epithelials, urine, feces, etc.... If you go through customs and touch anything your already giving them a sample. This is more about a database that can assist in retrieving records to quickly assist those that need information with it.
DNA has also been used to clear individuals as well. In the case of the criminal justice system, many individuals (with criminal records) are cleared already due to DNA samples on hand not matching a particular case.
DNA should be stored/analyzed at one place, together with a code. The name, address etc. should be at another place, identified by that code. If the police has a sample, they can get it analyzed, but don't have the identity yet. The second organisation should be supervised by a committee. They look at the police report, determine whether its merrits are sufficient to release the name. The database itself cannot be read if there is no majority (e.g., each of the committee members has part of the password to unlock the database).
Bert
Tell you what judge...if you believe this is necessary, how about having you and your family be the first to submit their DNA to the database?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
A DNA database would be used only for the "rigorously restricted purpose" of criminal investigation and prosecution? We keep hearing this cheesy, patronizing and naïve pick-up line.
I'd be joining the record numbers of people emigrating from the UK before I voluntarily submitted to such an unwarranted, unnecessary and venal scheme as this.
One more thing, I don't care about inequality in the DNA database. How could this even be an issue unless having your DNA in the database is a fundamental violation of rights to begin with?
* No, current genetic fingerprinting techniques aren't tailored for such "pre-crime".
Unfortunately a criminal can very easily hide their DNA by injecting foreign blood into their circulatory system. It has been done, according to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia says: Dr. John Schneeberger of Canada raped one of his sedated patients in 1992 and left semen on her underwear. Police drew Schneeberger's blood and compared its DNA against the crime scene semen DNA on three occasions, never showing a match. It turned out that he had surgically inserted a Penrose drain into his arm and filled it with foreign blood and anticoagulants.
This means that criminals have a way to bypass DNA checks and hide their identity. It's harder than making a fake ID card, but it's still relatively easy. Therefore, a national universal DNA database would not help to catch the smartest (and probably most dangerous) of the criminals. It could help to catch a few stupid or clueless criminals, but these are not too dangerous compared to the smarter ones.
Therefore DNA evidence is not the final answer to whether a person is guilty. It can contribute to an investigation, but no one must base a decision solely on DNA identification. With this in mind, the ROI of a massive universal national DNA database may be much lower than this judge thinks.
As a citizen of the US, I am already displeased with the erosion of civil liberties for the sake of security.
... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
Two of our greatest statesmen (Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, respectively) have said the following:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
We have permitted the creation (as Jefferson alluded to) of a ruling aristocratic class that has taken control and now works solely to support their own interests. History is the greatest teacher of all and yet we ignore her teachings. I do not understand why there are not more people enraged at what has gone on in both countries over the past ten years in the name of security.
In terms of a solution to the problem, the only thing that I could see as workable would be to add term limits for the house and senate, eliminate lobbying from for profit corporate entities, and making campaigns federally funded and capping the amount of money spent to ensure a level playing field.
Our founding fathers envisioned statesmen that would perform public service in office for a period of time and return to the proverbial farm when their term has completed.
One of the things that, as a software engineer, attracts me to open source is that the communities very much function as meritocracies. I'm not sure that something like that would be applicable on a larger, country wide scale, but its a nice idea.
It's more likely that Labour have put this judge up to saying this so they can then say:
"Oh no, what a horrible plan - we stand firmly against such draconian measures which undermine civil liberties to such an extent. Which is why our marvellous ID card scheme, and the strictly limited and carefully controlled extensions we will propose to the current DNA scheme have none of those problems."
It is very good that DNA can be used to help clear innocent people accused of being criminals. However, if the police already has a DNA sample from the crime scene and a person is accused of being the criminal, and such person can always give their DNA to the police for testing. A database of DNA samples for helping clearing innocents is not needed at all, I think. You have the DNA sample from the crime scene, you have the accused person in front of you, what else do you need? How could a database help?
Well, I guess this is a bit more civilized than the tattoos of the Nazis.
It is quite apparent from TFA that the Brits are incapable of managing the accuracy of a small amount of data. How will large amounts of data overcome their utter lack accuracy?
And remember databases don't do public profiling, PEOPLE do public profiling.
All technology can be used for beneficial AND malicious purposes, leave it to the bloody Brits to demonstrate the latter.
Trollin' away, have a nice day.
Hope is the currency of fools
Why has this just been made public now? Lord Justice Sedley has been promoting this idea for a while, at least since January 2005 when he wrote an article for the London Review of Books in which he set out his argument. So why is it big news now? Is this cover for some new government initiative or what?
-b.
I'm moving to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific to start my own country. Anyone care to join me?
What are your breasts like?
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
That does not matter. If these loose words of the judge are ever put into law (unlikely, but given surveillance-mad Britain, who know...), this proposal would force every Briton - and visitor - to prove his or her innocence for every crime in the future. That will take time, but UK authorities don't care about that. Their abstract view of justice (catching criminals) has blinded them to the liberality upon which Western justice is based.
Speed be damned. This is about the slow constriction of society.
I already avoid traveling to America; now, perhaps I will need to avoid the UK as well. Although not perfect, at the least the EU has its privacy directive.
Seriously though, the way the UK is going at the moment the only sensible option will soon be to leave. Trouble is I can't think of anywhere better to go to.
All the test cards from late 1960s to test for congenital hypothyroidism, galactosaemia and cystic fibrosis ect over the years.
How long are they kept and who can use them?
In Australia one state held them for 18 years.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The UK seems to be making more and more of the ordinary population into criminals with all the new laws been introduced and it's going more towards a system of 'Guilty until proven innocent'.
If you treat people like criminals, then don't be surprised if they will act like criminals.
You reap what you sow.
+10 funny !
The DNA samples contain a copy of every single gene belonging to the person from whom the sample was taken; for example, your DNA sample contains the information required to make a genetic clone of you.The DNA samples should not be being stored. It is not necessary for law enforcement purposes. The DNA samples could be and ought to be destroyed immediately.
The problem and the danger is that keeping the DNA samples enables anybody in future to try searching through the database for people with particular genes that are suspected or claimed to be associated with particular types or patterns of human behaviors or capabilities. It is strongly suspected that there are clusters of genes, and maybe individual genes, that are at least statistically, and possibly even directly, associated with a likelihood to commit certain types of criminal or other undesirable behavior. The authoritarian personalities that typically become powerful politicians will jump at the chance to identify potential criminals at birth by their genetics.
Aldous Huxley made us all too aware of the awful consequences of casually allowing genetic engineering of the human race. Our precious human society could easily become something horribly unhuman resembling Huxley's Brave New World.
In summary, we should aim to ensure the UK DNA Database destroys all DNA samples once DNA profiles have been obtained. If and only if that is done, documented and tightly legislated in a way that no weasel word loving politician can wriggle out of, I don't have a personal problem with DNA profiles of all residents being stored.
That Britain is a police state, all for our own protection you understand. We are the most survailed society in the world (more CCTV cameras than anywhere else). The police have arbitrary powers to stop and search anyone - they got them as part of 'anti-terrorism' laws but are using them on the likes of environmental protesters. Add that too compulsory ID cards (comming in 2013, need a passport or driving license? You'll need an ID card to get them.)
The DNA database applies to anyone who has been arrested and you cant get yourself removed even if your innocent or are never charged. We are already 2 thirds there, all Britian needs is a government that passes some nice fascist laws to make expressing a dissenting opinion a crime.... Oh, hang on, they already done that with animal rights protesters..... All for our own protection.
I can't think of anything witty right now
"The Government" is a hodgepodge of agencies with mutually contradictory goals and aims, most of whom would sooner throw rocks at each other than cooperate. This is, perversely, a good thing.
Why? Because although "the government" may know a lot about you, it doesn't know all of that in any one place. There's no single database -- yet -- where you can sit down, CSI-style, and bring up any citizen's dossier. Your local police department knows your name, address, and how many parking tickets you've gotten this year, but they don't have access to your tax information from the IRS. (And the IRS is actually pretty snarky about not sharing information casually; if I had a dime for every time one of my LEO buddies bitched about the IRS making them jump through hoops, I'd be a rich man. I guess there's honor among thieves or something.)
This is the way the system is supposed to work. (Well, I'd like to see the size of the bureaucracy cut down dramatically, but that's a different topic.) In order for the bureaucracy to function, it needs to know a certain amount about you. But different agencies need to know different things. As long as the data is kept compartmentalized -- as it is, in large part, today; owing less to design than simply because it's a really hard problem to correlate it all -- it's not a mortal threat to privacy.
It's when you start to get all that information put into a single database, and where there's a natural primary key that allows the database to be easily searched and information to be linked (why do people get paranoid about SSNs? Because they're the obvious choice for a primary key), that you start to get really Orwellian. With minor exceptions, we don't have anything like that in the U.S., although there are a lot of people trying.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The fact is that solving crimes in Britain has become purely about statistics and pretty graphs, not about protecting the populace against crime.
This is why our roads are lined with speed cameras - because someone driving 7 mph over the speed limit can be considered as having committed a crime and, when they are caught, that's another crime solved by the police.
The DNA database is just another excuse to actually putting more police on the streets - it has nothing to do with civil liberties, it's just because our inept politicians are just interested in producing pretty graphs and having police in offices filling in forms rather than patrolling our streets.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
this proposal would force every Briton - and visitor - to prove his or her innocence for every crime in the future
I apologize, I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but I don't understand. DNA samples tend to clear innocent suspects, not falsely implicate them. In the US numerous people suffering from false imprisonment, DNA tests were not available at the time of their trial, have been released as they managed to get DNA tests performed. Thank goodness for long term preservation of evidence.
It's a shame that it becomes increasingly uncomfortable to travel to native english-speaking countries. If this paranoid security stuff goes on many people will have wasted their time learning english since they don't want to go there anymore. Like me. And I even did a highschool diploma in the USA and loved my time there (it was before 9/11).
Hopefully the british population will speak up about this!
@Sandbags:
Nice facist attitude. Please never reproduce.
I'm neither paranoid, in fact I'm pretty relaxed and optimistic, nor a member of a minority - and I haven't comitted any crime. So, why should I not want this? Because really bad things can be done by abusing an "omniscient" database. If you deny the existence of corruption then may (your) god help you.
I've got a nice read for you, by the way: google for "Manna" by Marshall Brain. Shows nicely how this can be used in a good way - and a very bad one. For the good way to happen a LOT has to change in our world and before that doesn't happen such a database would be a terribly dangerous thing.
Why not? In the U.S., don't we already record fingerprints at birth? Let's just all do this.
I don't think these fingerprints go into a government database. I think they are for the parents. I'm thinking of the programs offered at schools where the parents can have the kids fingerprinted in case they are abducted or something. I'm hoping what is being done at the hospital is something similar. Or is this a mandatory component of a birth certificate now?
When the Judge gets in line to have his and his family's DNA registered, then he can make his commentary. Until then, I'd say he's blowing smoke up the collective UK's asses.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
The two most private sets of data that you have are your DNA, and your private thoughts.
All that's stopped the British government from invading your DNA privacy was the arrival of the technology. Now it's cheap enough for the government to afford it - by charging you taxes - your innermost privacy is history.
Once there's tech for reading your mind, like scanning your neurons with a "wireless SQUID", the government will require reading your mind, too.
Or we can draw the line by defending our bodies and minds from government invasion now. If we wait for the mindreading tech to arrive, it'll be too late.
--
make install -not war
"I'm moving to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific to start my own country. Anyone care to join me?"
What are your breasts like?
I'd add are you a woman? I really don't care about a man's c-cups.
Politicians agree to have video cameras strapped to their heads 24/7, recording everything they say and do.
All three of these were authored in the UK. Is this a continuing pattern?
In autumn 2008 we're supposed to have our Niten Ichi Ryu kenjutsu Seminar in England. I will ask them to move it somewhere else as it will make complications for our Japanese teachers (as well as participants)...
m10
There's no single database -- yet -- where you can sit down, CSI-style, and bring up any citizen's dossier. Your local police department knows your name, address, and how many parking tickets you've gotten this year, but they don't have access to your tax information from the IRS. (And the IRS is actually pretty snarky about not sharing information casually;
...
It's not being snarky, it is that the law restricts them from doing so.(*) There are laws on the books that specifically restrict governmental agencies from collecting more information than is necessary and from sharing the collected information.
(*) I don't mean to imply that the IRS is not a PITA to deal with when they are free to conduct themselves as they wish to, regardless of whether you are an individual or another agency.
It's when you start to get all that information put into a single database, and where there's a natural primary key that allows the database to be easily searched and information to be linked
I believe that the use of a SSN as a key is prohibited unless the agency needs it, and that agencies are also prohibited from using the same key. The laws are specifically designed to make it difficult to search multiple governmental databases.
Holidays are specific days, usually government sanctioned in some way, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Veteran's Day (and a few more). Some of these have specific dates (25 December), others are specified as Nth X-day of the month (Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November), others used to have specific dates but have become generalized to Nth Mondays (Memorial Day used to be May 30, now it is the last Monday in May). These would be somewhat analogous to Bank Holidays in the UK. Not all employers give days off on all the holidays - the financial and government sectors get the best deals there.
Vacation is generally thought of a bulk time off, one or two weeks taken at a time. Even if you stay at home, it's still "vacation" because you're not at work. ("What did you do on your vacation, Bob?" "Nothing really, Fred, just stayed around the house and played Metroid Prime 3.")
More and more corporations seem to be changing away from offering employees "vacation days". My particular employer gives me a certain amount of "Managed Time Off" which I need to use for vacations, sick days, dentists visits, etc.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
I don't know anything about this judge's background but I'm not at all convinced that he seriously wants this outcome.
To me it looks equally plausible that he is taking the stand that the current system is flawed and unfair and that making it fair is infeasable - ie. we are storing DNA on an arbitrary and racially biased selection of innocent people so to make it fair we should get DNA from everyone.
The "solution" he proposes is tailor-made to provoke outrage and highlight the problems he sees with the current system.
Unfortunately in the most-surveilled-society-in-the-world there seem to be plenty of people saying, "hmmm, not a bad idea."
Now if it were to come to pass, I would never travel there again.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Have you got any evidence to back this up? Because poor people are more likely to commit crimes (at least crimes you'll get caught for) and in America unfortunately a black person is more likely to be poor then a white person (thanks to all of those decades of racism). So therefore a black person truly is more likely to commit a crime. It's not the police's fault, it's not a genetic trait of black people, it is a social one we have imparted onto them through a series of unfortunate events.
You are misrepresenting things to a degree. Racism is not the only cause of poverty, benevolent liberalism is also a cause. The deterioration of the family unit is not due to racism, it is in part due to well meaning social programs that had unintended effects. To a degree, the War on Poverty inadvertently contributed to a culture of dependency and displaced a cultural strong on family and self reliance. While the preceding could fall under your "imparted onto them" theme, there are also internal factors such as the current fashion of embracing the "thug life". I'm not attacking rap, I certainly saw plenty of examples of whites embracing a "rock and roll" lifestyle and relegating themselves to poverty due to excessive drug use. I was a punk as a kid, did my share of recreationals, but fortunately I came to realize "this is dumb" one day and stepped back from the precipice a little. Others did not have this realization and dial it back a little and they and their eventual children suffer.
Because British people are so inbred that you might end up with infinite recursion locking up the SQL servers.
And it's pretty cool! Obligatory wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimerism
There are people out there whose pancreases (or whatever) have different DNA from the rest of their body. Several women have had very complicated maternity lawsuits in the US in which they were accused of illegally running surrogate mother businesses, because their children's DNA did not show up as being related!
Once everyone's DNA is indexed somewhere then it opens up a can of worms. It's inevitable that at some point it will be misused. Perhaps it's opened up for other uses (Insurance companies, public domain, etc) or maybe someone just gets access to the data.
In the US, since the 1970s, government agencies have been restricted in terms of what information they can collect and what they can share even amongst each other and subcontractors. Since then privacy rules have become even more restrictive, in particular with respect to medical information.
The insurance company screening argument is a red herring to a degree. They could collect a DNA sample as part of a mandatory physical. Unless such profiling is outlawed, it will happen regardless of whether or not there is a national DNA database.
I'm surprised that nobody has realised that this judge has come up with the only way to issue a wake up call that anybody will listen to. The current system, where innocent people have their DNA recorded as a result of being arrested and not charged is grotesquely inappropriate and unfair. He knows that it's a frog in warm water situation and we are heading towards being cooked.
I don't believe that any sane person would seriously propose a system where tourists have their DNA taken on entering the country! That's how I know he isn't really arguing for an expansion of the database. He has started a debate and it's about time. Good on him.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
-- Number 6, the 1960s British TV show "The Prisoner"
I realy can't think of a situation when it would help.
I think it makes sense to get the finger prints and DNA of visitors to your country. I've been asking for that here in the US for ages. If you don't like it, then don't visit. But it's not really a big deal to any tourist except for people who wish to hide out in the country and establish a new false identity, it really ruins those sorts of plans.
And now that we know that there is not enough information in regular DNA alone to clone someone properly, there can be no complaint from paranoid movie stars.
You would still want an I.D. card, that cross references your DNA + fingerprint record. So that you can quickly prove you are who you say you are. It takes less than a second to compare two thumb prints, but it takes a lot longer to search a database of millions of prints to find the right one. If you lose your I.D. card you will have to sit around and wait a very long time.
I'm not sure why use DNA rather than a thumb print, it's a lot more expensive and a lot slower to check. And you're about as likely to leave a fingerprint behind as a usable DNA sample, except in the case of rape. Do the UK courts think there are a lot of rapists entering the country now?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The missing step involves charging fees for the extra DNA checks done now that the national database doesn't exist. Just think of the profits! There must be a DNA lab lobby in the UK...here in the states there'd be people all over this. OF course, they'd play both sides - get the national database done, then push to have it overturned so they could do it all over again.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You have buddies in Low Earth Orbit? WTF?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Umm... I don't think this one is about killing Catholics, we're over that..
( A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah hoorah!)
Blowing up the government and the MPs won't work, it's actually just a random mad judge who's asking for this. We also have our fair share of unhinged judges. Though to be fair it is true that our judiciary and government and police do seem to be rather keen on data collection sometimes... I heard the radio interview with the judge this morning when he was suggesting all tourists should also be saliva swabbed when they came into the country. The Radio 4 presenter sugggested this might not be possible... (Radio 4: traditional voice of the BBC, conservative with a small c, if they think it's bonkers it probably is...)
Translation: He secretly likes it and is happy someone else brought it up, he wont be the one blasted in public opinion for it being his idea.
Except they have some DNA evidence that points to you. And in the eyes of most juries, DNA is the magic bullet for a prosecutor. According to TV, DNA is alway 100% sure that you are the father.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
If the big government types get their way, soon we'll just chip children (RFID) at birth--won't that just be lovely!
-se
Are the British really this dumb? Sure in the US we already know that the majority of our citizens are too lazy to care. Americans continue to roll over every time they have their freedom taken away.
It seems that every other day I wake up I ask myself "did Hitler actually win the war?"
The British subjects keep finding new ways to spinelessly allow the gov't to humiliate them. Even in the US, DNA databases are yet another violation of our rights. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this great country. As for the UK, it's too late.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
England Prevails!
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I guess the Sunni just love the Shiites to death, and vice versa.
I think I prefer western civilization thank you.
Wow, you really think it's that simple?
Cos when I see actual convicted fellons numbers, they don't correlate to the numbers above, so there must be a discreprincy somewhere. Also Googling for teen murders hardly counts as a solid base for a unbiased opinion.
I'm gonna do something crazy and give you some other facts. When looking at level of income white people and black people are actually just as likely to commit crimes, so are blacks just more lazy? Maybe, but there have been some studies to that extent as well. Did you know that if you are black you have about 30% less chance to get a job if you have the same credentials as a white person? Did you know that if your name is arabic, you have a about half a chance to be even invited for a job interview (with the same credentials)? (I could look up the dutch article in which they tested this, but I'm gonna presume you don't speak dutch, though I'm sure there are international surveys with similar results.)
The reason why things are the way they are, is never as easy as googling "teen murders 2007" and putting a conclusion next to it.
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
I'll play Devil's advocate and go ahead with the assumption that some (in the UK gov't) would think this a good idea. Even thus, there are issues:
I think that, often enough, the lawgivers don't understand the technology and the limits (not in terms of implementation so much as effectiveness and accuracy) of the information. Sure, recording everyone's DNA might be - in a screwed up way - more "fair" to the general public, but it also means that the system has to accommodate much, much more data. Suddenly scaling up a system with - say - 100,000 users or datapoints, to a user base that is in the millions is - depending on how well it was coded for scalability - likely going to bog it down. Suddenly, the tool has a lot more data, but it will take a *lot* longer to access and/or process due to the large of amount of data it has to deal with.
Then you add in the human error. If there's already plenty of that, then expanding the system is almost indefinitely not going to improve that situation. If anything, it's going to make things worse. With the added data, you're greatly increasing your chances of mis-entered data, collisions (people with the same first/last name, etc) and general errors.
From a personal perspective I'm horrified by this. From a technical perspective - if such a system were put into place effectively - I might actually find myself morbidly interesting in the inner workings and how it was put together.
Oh, and I also meant to say: I think it's rather naive that a "rolemodel" would be a solution. If you want people to stop commiting crimes, give them a reason not to... This almost always comes down to work. BTW: Not saying there isn't a cultural problem, but I think it's a result of the income problem, not the other way around. So "solving" the cultural problem, won't do any good, equal working opportunities on the other hand would.
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
Blair/Brown might be to the right of me and you, but our Conservatives are way to the left of the US Democrats. Heck even the BNP is to the left of all the US parties.
Interesting that the real bogeyman behind the ID card issue (the national ID register & its associated DNA collection) is finally getting its time in the limelight.
I thought that it was fairly well known that a complete UK national DNA database has been a long-term goal of (at least) New Labour for years, even though it somehow never made it into the election manifesto. My understanding of this was that they'd taken a look at the marketability of Iceland's national DNA database & had been licking their lips over the prospect of a UK equivalent ever since. The fact that in much of the UK, it's entirely possible to be arrested, DNA-tested, released without even being charged with a crime & then have no way to have one's DNA sample destroyed or the database entry deleted clearly supports this.
As I recall, Iceland's DNA database was actually voted for by the people there in a national referendum. The scenario was that although Iceland had comparatively little in the way of natural resources for international trade, one of the things they could sell was a database containing the full genetic information of the population. It was a big government revenue earner, IIRC. I remember seeing a TV report about this years ago, in which the Icelandic researcher being interviewed was able to type in both his own name & the singer Bjork's, & immediately pull up their most recent common ancestor.
Now, Iceland's population as a whole is genetically unusually homogeneous, so it provides an interesting dataset for all kinds of studies. In contrast, the UK population is extremely genetically diverse (particularly nowadays), which also makes it interesting as a counterpoint for such studies. Given that there are 60 million genetically-diverse people confined to the small island nation that is the UK, this would provide a massive, mostly-controllable, genetically heterogeneous pool that'd be worth a fortune to all sorts of industries, including (but not limited to) the obvious cases of the insurance & pharmaceutical business worlds.
I know that the current UK criminal DNA database only includes information based on key markers, rather than a complete DNA workup, but I can't help but suspect that once the general public are conditioned to being used to a DNA database, then augmentation of the entries as a consequence of increased computing power will just be publicly referred to as an 'upgrade' (or some such), & feature creep will follow. Then a few years down the line, access to the database will be somehow granted to more & more parties, outside of the original spec. The government already invited people to make 'gift' donations of their DNA samples obtained during medical procedures.
In the end, there are no good reasons for this database & many bad ones. There's the implicit Totalitarian assumption that everyone is guilty until proven innocent, & should therefore be compulsorily catalogued. There's the question of what subsequent British governments might do with the information, even assuming that the current government is totally good & benign (which I don't really believe for a second). There's the fact that DNA testing could still be used to help distinguish between innocent & guilty suspects for a given crime without the need for a database (& no, the fact that it'd conveniently speed up the process somewhat is *not* sufficient justification for the wholesale erosion of personal freedoms). There's the security issue: sufficiently interesting databases are frequently hacked, stolen, sold, traded, or used for purposes for which they were not initially designed. There's the fact that based on previous experiences with British government IT contracts, the thing will overrun massively both in terms of time & expense, cost the taxpayers millions & return nothing in the way of tangible benefits. And heaven help anyone who mistakenly gets a red flag next to their name. See (e.g.) "Gattaca" or "Brazil". And lastly, I feel it's an invasion of my most
Who holds, protects and can access this data. The problem is that, like any form of data, can be misused. Like TJX, Veterans Administration or any other breaches or misappropriation of this data I don't think I want my DNA data on any system. Due to the lack of oversight of these systems and data that I worry about unauthorized people taking or misusing the data.
I know this is Britain but if a such a small country has such problems implementing such a system what chances we, in the US, could make this system work here unless we learn from Britain mistakes.
are located here.
Good luck on your mission.
PatRIOTically,
Philboyd Studge, ACTIVIST
DNA is only useful now because its not in wide use. Sure DNA like a finger print is a good identifier and because of that it's easy to jump to the incorrect conclusion that this is a good move for clearing the innocent.
A fingerprint is a good identifier not only because its one of a kind, but because its dam hard to fake. The most you can do is spend a lot of time with a mold or use chemicals to lift and drop one.
DNA is a horrible identifier because its so butt easy to get DNA from anyone. A week in a hair cut place and I have all the evidence I need to point any crime I do at anyone else. Skin, saliva, blood, esc are all very easy to get from anyone you want to frame for a crime any time you feel like it and it takes no skill, knowledge or time to do. The only reason you don't see more of this right now is only because so few people have there DNA of file.
Can't anyone see the obvious?
A database full of DNA samples of an entire population.. Cross-linked to criminal records, education levels and career choices.
Can you imagine how valuable this kind of database would be to various research teams within areas such as behavior research, sociology, economics, criminology, etc, etc, etc?
Unofficially allowing access to the highest bidder would pay extremely handsomely.
One law for us and another for them.
Anal probe every judge in the UK to make sure stuff won't go out the other way...
in other words, "a hodge-podge mix of people" have had their privacy invaded so the correct response is to invade the privacy of everyone.
similarly, a "a hodge-podge mix of people" have been beaten up and mugged, so the correct response is to beat up and mug everyone.
this proves the need for a Department of Enforced Equalisation.
it's only fair.
I got arrested for fighting (I'm from england) just when I was drunk and they took dna samples to behonest I think its taking things a little to far it makes ya parnoid.
..."did Hitler actually win the war?"
No, Stalin did.
"visitors' DNA" is a pie-in-the-sky idea that is rightly being shot down in flames and is extremely unlikely to ever eventuate. Fingerprinting at US Customs is something that actually happens. It is worse when it happens.
Just so long as they take my dna sample from my dead body so they can check it against their list of unsolved crimes.
THEN you'll see 'em.
I wonder what the carbon footprint of the constabulary in the UK is...