Slashdot Mirror
Inside England and Wales' DNA Regime
Sockatume writes "The UK's Human Genetics Commission has published its report on the collection of DNA by the Police forces in England and Wales. Currently, Police collect DNA from every suspect in a case which could lead to a criminal record, and retain that material, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled illegal. The government plans to keep all DNA samples for suspects from England, Wales and Northern Ireland for up to six years, except for DNA from individuals arrested during terrorism-related investigations, which will be retained forever. The report states that the police frequently performed arrests solely to collect DNA, that certain demographics (such as young, black men) were 'very highly over-represented,' that there was 'very little concrete evidence' that the DNA database had any actual use in investigating crime, and that the database contained material from individuals arrested in Scotland and Northern Ireland, outside its remit. Of the 4.5m individuals in the database, a fifth have never received any convictions or cautions from the Police. The report recommends that an independent advisory body oversee the database, and that laws be passed to limit the uses of the database, while tracking those with access to it, and making misuse of the information a criminal offence."
Police collect DNA from every suspect in a case which could lead to a criminal record ...
So they started with the politicians then?
I'm serious though, the people who passed this and put it into place should first enter their own DNA into the system as a sign of good faith and unwavering confidence that this system will never be used negatively to persecute anyone nor will it ever produce a false positive on a match.
My work here is dung.
In the US too, and for fingerprinting as well.
Such evidence should only be collected without consent with a warrant and if the individual is not charged and convicted with a crime such evidence should be removed from any database/storage and destroyed/deleted. If it is taken with consent then the individual should have the right to ask that it be destroyed after the investigation is complete.
On a wider note many such police/law enforcement databases need to be more thoroughly regulated, including things such as "Do Not Fly" lists and terrorism suspects. There needs to be a clear legal way for both puting someone's name on the list, and removing it, as well there also needs to be a way for individuals to know why they are on any such list.
I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Certain demographics (such as young, black men) are also 'very highly over-represented' in prison.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
That's not the issue. The issue is that one in five people in that database really have no business being there.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here in the United States they've taken your DNA from birth since the 1970's (even earlier if you were in the military or other government programs). Every state does it. They bury the "consent" form in the mountains of paperwork you need to sign while at the hospital. That's if they haven't gotten rid of the consent requirement. Minnesota got rid of parental consent in 1997.
Even though some states let you "opt out" by having them destroy the blood samples after the tests they still keep all the information obtained. They then sell that information to companies, who then patent your DNA. If you ever require gene therapy you'll have to pay that company a large sum to use your own DNA. Who knows what else they do to it.
http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/MINORITY%20REPORT%20Genetic%20Info%20-%20FINAL.pdf
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Well then we better go arrest those trespassers!
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
Oversight isn't a fix for something that shouldn't exist in the first place. If you can't trust the original owners to be ethical with something of such corruptible power, do you really want to risk trusting *anyone* with this?
What about this? Are we just supposed to pretend it never happened?
Caveat Utilitor
Of the 4.5m individuals in the database, a fifth have never received any convictions or cautions from the Police.
Than means that for approx 80% of the people they initially suspected, they were right!
No, that means that 80% of those have had some form of criminal conviction or caution at any point in their life, which could be for a large array of fairly minor things.
Cautions can be given out for petty vandalism or fairly minor crime, lots of things that people may have done during their younger years. Not the sort of crimes that i think DNA should be kept on a database for.
Please don't go and give them any ideas! They probably haven't thought of that yet.
Police: "We're arresting you for trespassing."
Citizen: "But I haven't done anything! I've been home all day."
Police: "Your DNA was in our database and it does not belong there."
Citizen: "Didn't YOU put my DNA in there to begin with?"
Police: "SILENCE. Oh look, we already have your DNA. It's a perfect match..."
Best "String" Ever!
I can't say it's surprising that there is " 'very little concrete evidence' that the DNA database had any actual use in investigating crime." If you look at the UK, the trend lines all seem very alarming - billions of pounds spent on crime fighting theater that doesn't actually fight crime, loss of basic freedoms at a rate even the Tudors or the Puritans would have found alarming, all with no apparent actual oversight of any of it. This just seems part of the same pattern.
The problem is that the police use DNA for fishing expeditions instead of doing real police work. Rather than bothering to investigate and find likely suspects that they can then interview and perhaps ask for a DNA sample, they just arrest anyone who has merely been accused and take their DNA. Even if it turns out that are completely innocent that DNA is kept forever and tested against all future crimes.
Let's say you accidentally brush against someone on the street. A few days later the police arrest you because a hair with your DNA was found at the scene of a child rape and murder. You now have to explain how your hair got there (it landed on the clothes of the person you passed in the street and was transported there) and your whareabouts at the time of the crime. You will need to involve other people to confirm your alibi, which means they will find out that you are a suspect in a child rape and murder. You will not be able to go to work while in custody, and will have to explain your absence to your employer.
All because the police couldn't be bothered to try and figure out who might have done it, they just grabbed any DNA from the scene and looked in their database, then arrested everyone who matched to see who could provide an alibi.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No, but you need to adjust for their well-recorded bias. The noted industries (public and private) actually subsist on the capture of people and labeling them as criminals regardless of actual innocence. Of course they'd be willing to have a massive amount of false positives... it all helps to further validate their existences.
that think any DNA evidence presented is absolute, pure, handed-down-from-god-almighty proof of guilt are a big part of the problem. Especially if you have a giant, tailor-made repository of DNA already harvested from 'The Usual Suspects' to help 'solve' those pesky cases that stand in the way of pay raises, big promotions, or running for political office on a law and order platform. Just sprinkle your handy sample of pre-collected DNA liberally at that stone-cold-whodunit crime scene and announce "Hey, look what I found!".
... also be able to charge, fine, and incriminate the policemen who continue to do things illegally, thus setting example and ensuring better policemanship.
The police don't respect the law because very few people actually make them do it.
Make them.
"Members of the Jury, if you accept the scientific evidence called by the Crown, this indicates that there are probably only four or five white males in the United Kingdom from whom that semen stain could have come. The Defendant is one of them. If that is the position, the decision you have to reach, on all the evidence, is whether you are sure that it was the Defendant who left that stain or whether it is possible that it was one of that other small group of men who share the same DNA characteristics." - Phillips LJ, cited from Wikipedia article. To be truly effective as a tool in prosecution, every man, woman and child would need their DNA profile kept on record, and British public records, up to and including massive numbers of tax returns (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082402/Tax-website-shut-memory-stick-secret-personal-data-12million-pub-car-park.html), have a history of being woefully insecure. None of this bodes well for much of anything.
It's bizarre but there still seems to be this perception that the police are a fine bunch of chaps who will universally do their best to apply the rules sensibly and fairly. There are plenty of police officers who that description applies to, I'm sure - but that's not an excuse for lawmakers and the justice system to assume it holds universally true.
At the end of the day, the police are there - in practice - *to catch potential criminals*. Sorting out who is and isn't guilty is not their job, that's the job of the courts (as it should be). So the police don't really have an incentive to be especially fair or reasonable; that's not what we've tasked them with doing. What lawmakers sometimes seem to fail to understand is that if we pressure them to achieve "catch all the terrorists / criminals" then they'll try to do that, even if they "catch" many innocent people too. If we give them new tools to do that then *they will use them*. If the tools we give them are extremely blunt instruments, like the ability to hold innocent people's data on the DNA database, they're going to use them to their fullest extent. If we want them to behave sensibly, the laws need to be more focused and less open to abuse.
It's the same issue with various "anti-terror" laws. Allegedly local councils in the UK have used these to put people under surveillance for reasons unrelated to terrorism (like whether they're using their rubbish bins correctly and whether they live in the locality of a school they have applied to). We gave them overly broad legislation and assumed that they wouldn't use it, even though it helps them to do what they see as their job. None of these organisations can be relied upon to act in the best interests in society because each of them only sees part of the big picture - our politicians are *supposed* to maintain the balance of power with targeted legislation that results in society's best interests being served overall. That goal can't be reached by handing out disproportionate powers indiscriminately.
... and making misuse of the information a criminal offense.
Wait a sec. You mean it isn't a criminal offense already???
I spit at their attempt to get my DNA! Oh, wait...
Putting the "anal" back into "analyst"...
In a civilized country, you don't have to kill people to make a point. You have discussions.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
The difference with DNA (and to some extent fingerprints) is that it turns the tables on the accused. You are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and it is up to the police to make that proof. Instead they now just go directly to the database, meaning that if the real criminal is not on there but your DNA is then it will be you who is arrested and now has to explain how your DNA got there while the police go through your life looking for anything they can to attack your character or use as leverage against you. Only have you have been ruled out will they look for the real perpetrator.
Even worse are the so called "voluntary" testing of entire communities. If a woman is raped and says it was by a white male age 20-35 the police have been known to ask all white males aged 20-35 in the area to submit a "voluntary" DNA sample. Anyone who refuses to "volunteer" becomes a suspect and has to explain their decision to decline, as well as being arrested and forced to give their DNA anyway and suffering all the consequences I already mentioned.
The balance between the police's power to investigate and that of citizens to be private is a tricky one. If you gave the police absolute power they could catch a lot more criminals, but you would also be living in a police state. I think you just have to accept that some people will literally get away with murder, but such is the price of freedom.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC