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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.'"
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..."
Delete the database.
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.
Then compare core samples through the brain.
Nothing wrong with that, and if you use a bore small enough people won't notice.
liqbase
This is what expects us.
What you say !!
You have no chance to survive make your time.
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.
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Just for the record, a quick bit of googling shows on london teen murders 2007 showed the following for those who thought this was flamebait:
Mohammed Ahmed, suspect attacker, black
Adam Regis (black) attacked by 2 blacks
Billy Cox (black) attacker black
James Smartt-Ford (black)
Michael Dosunmu (black)
Annaka Keniesha Pinto (black)
Charlotte Polius (black)
That was the first few I found. I remember the London Evening Standard did a photo spread recently of all the victims of stabbings or shootings in London this year and there was one white face.
It might not be PC, it might not be palatable but this is what's going on and waving the race card to object is doing the black population a huge disservice as is trying to sweep it all under the carpet. There are endemic problems with gang culture and there is a need for some postive role models for young kids that don't involve rap songs about ho's, bitches, killing, drugs, fast cars and easy money.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
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.
"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."
Like all other evidence DNA can either convict people unfairly or free innocent people. It's all down to interpretation. First off not all DNA testing is done to the level where a specific individual can be positively identified, they generally pick N locations and compare the suspect to the sample and state that this combination of markers at these location are likely to occur in X percent of the population. The main reason this kind of testing is done is that it is MUCH quicker and quite a bit cheaper than a full genome workup. Second, just because your DNA is present does not mean you committed a crime, simply that it is likely you were present (your DNA can be planted or incidentally transfered). Also lack of DNA evidence does not mean you are innocent, only that you did not leave any detectable evidence behind.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The homepage for the Canadian National DNA Data Bank says that DNA samples are taken only from convicted criminals. The site says:(emphasis added)
Moreover, this page discusses debate (in 2005) about whether or not a DNA database could help with missing persons investigations. The discussion doesn't mention using an already-existing DNA database of all citizens (or all citizens born since 1994) but instead seems to discuss the creation of a new database. In the discussion about whether such a database should be created, they say: In short, this sounds like a proposal for a voluntary system where loved ones of a missing person could donate DNA samples to help locate the person or identify their remains. It makes no mention of an existing effort to retain DNA on all newborns since 1994.
Anyone have any further information on this subject?
(Anecdotally, I'm not aware of any such DNA testing on any children recently born in Canada--e.g. my nephew.)