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UK Police Promise Not To Retain DNA Data, But Do Anyway
redalien writes "In 2008 I invited two policemen into my home and voluntarily gave them a DNA and fingerprint sample to help with a murder investigation, as they'd promised it would only be used for that investigation. I was never under any suspicion and could just as easily have said no. Almost a year after the investigation closed they have now confirmed that they've retained my samples and at my request have begun an investigation to see if there are sufficient 'exceptional circumstances' to remove them. I'm not the only one who was told samples would be removed, so if you've had such a promise from the police I recommend contacting their data protection registrar immediately."
Watch and learn.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You must understand despite what you have been led to believe the police are not your friend. They are a necessary evil. Never trust them or allow them into your home without a warrant. Limit your responses to them simple yes or no if you are forced to talk with them.
A policeman's job is to arrest people and put them in jail. They understand this quite well. You must as well.
Just replace "don't talk to the police" with "don't provide DNA/etc voluntarily to the police." You don't gain anything by talking to the police nor providing genetic evidence without a proper warrant. Different reasons same good advice.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The police in an investigation can and will only ever help the prosecution. They are not going to help the defense of anyone. The only person who will do that is you and your lawyer. Even if you have proof that you were not the person, if the local DA or Magistrate or whatever it is in your country decides to have charges brought against you, whatever you said, did, provided, etc., will be used against you. Even if you are simply saying something like that you were not in the area at that time, you don't know if the police already have a witness that said they saw you, and as such, unless you have real "proof", you are simply "lying", and thus they will think even more so that you are the guilty party. I know people think that they should "help" the police in many of these cases, but the best thing you can do is say, "I am sorry, but I will not talk to you without a lawyer", and leave it at that. All you can do is get yourself in trouble.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
If you talk to the police without consul, during an investigation you have waived your rights and demonstrated to the police that you are an idiot, not honest or friendly. They are not your friends. The do not have to tell you the truth. When asked to waive my rights by an officer of the law I respectfully tell them that I am unable to waive them without the advice of an attorney. That pisses them off and they usually start threatening warrants and other harassment.
"With respect for your position sir, I respectfully decline any more communication without an attorney present, and understand you have a job to do, please proceed with what you have to do. Am I under arrest or are you detaining me? If so please provide consul. If not have a nice day!"
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Unfortunately the Police are under no obligation to remove the DNA from the database until your 100th birthday I've read through the regulations they work under. In the appendix there are form letters for the chief constable to tell you that your dna can not be removed, there is no example of a letter saying it can.
In the UK the police retain records of everyone even if you have never been arrested or charged with anything it is enough to be associated with someone with a criminal record for this to be recorded on your record. I believe they refer to these as non arrestable offenses. I say your record but its the polices record of you. Over time the Police are not forced to share what they have on you with other agencies but everything is kept on record for their use and they do have the option of clearing your record once you reach the age of 100.
Of course your Dna will not only identify you but close matches may suggest a brother or a son or other close relative may be worth investigating. There is no political will from either of the main parties to curb the current legislation they have both contributed to it. So you either live with it or leave and hope that there is no worldwide database created in your lifetime.
Rule number one where ever you are don't get involved with the Police if you can possibly avoid it.
http://www.genewatch.org/sub-539482
http://www.runnymedetrust.org/events-conferences/econferences/ethnic-profiling-in-uk-law-enforcement/the-report/the-national-dna-database/the-national-dna-database-2.html
The second link spells it out for you using big letters and crayon, yes you are on record and for all practical meanings of for the rest of your life.
The European Court of Human Rights
In December 2008, in the case of S. and Marper v. the UK, the Grand Chamber of European Court of Human Rights reached a unanimous judgment that the blanket retention of innocent people's DNA and fingerprints by the UK Government contravenes Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to privacy).
At the time of writing, the Government has yet to implement a response to the judgment. Its initial proposals to retain DNA records from innocent people for 6 or 12 years, depending on the offence for which they were arrested, were widely criticised. They have been replaced with an alternative 6 year retention time for innocent adults (3 years for under-16s), in the Crime and Security Bill 2009/10. However, both opposition parties regard these proposals as unacceptable.. The Government has also made a welcome proposal to destroy the original DNA samples (biological samples), which are currently stored by the commercial laboratories which analyse them, and which contain unlimited genetic information which is not needed for identification purposes.
I guess that this judgment may change things but currently there is no change and it will remain that way until compelled to change. note the opposition fighting against the change it can be viewed as because the proposals are still draconian or more cynically to block any change in the current status quo.
Unless legislation does go through and so far it hasn't then any plea to the chief constable to get the dna record removed due to exceptional circumstances will fall on deaf ears because after all being innocent of any crime is hardly exceptional in that database.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
On the bright side there is an increasing consensus that DNA evidence is a lot less useful than CSI: would have us believe.
It makes sense, really - it takes quite a while and a fairly large sample to sequence someone's genome with proper error checking, so the crime labs generally don't bother. Instead, they focus on a few areas of chromosomes called loci, and pick sections of non-coding DNA called short tandem repeats. US labs will normally look at 13 loci, UK labs 10. Many experts have testified in a court of law, under oath, that a match of nine loci is 'tantamount to unique identification'.
Studies have been done on small sections of some DNA databases, comparing every profile with every other profile, and found this to simply be false. In Arizona 65 493 profiles were made available - 122 pairs matched at nine loci, 20 at ten, 1 at eleven and 1 more at twelve. In Illinois 220 000 were checked, and 903 pairs matched at nine or more loci, and in Maryland 30 000 were checked, providing 32 matching pairs.
Add to this the problem that eyelashes, skin fragments etc can be carried on the wind, or from a random frottage, and we have some important cases being 'solved' with what amounts to deeply circumstantial evidence. With any luck this fascination with DNA being used as the be all and end all, the assayer of truth, will end as soon as possible.
PS: most of that informative stuff about loci and short tandem repeats was pretty much lifted from New Scientist #2742, dated 9 January 2010. IANAGeneticist, and would feel a small pang of guilt without adding this disclaimer.
Be smart, help people!
C'mon, this is the UK police we're talking about: nowadays they're driven by targets that come from the politicians and directly influence their bonuses and career prospects.
Targets have been set by the highest level of government to collect and keep as many DNA samples as possible for the DNA Database, so Bonuses and Promotions are at stake here. They don't give a damn about the citizens they are supposed to serve except as means to reach their targets, so they would tell you whatever you wanted to hear to get another point on their DNA samples target.
Count yourself lucky though: people's lifes have been ruined when they got "Cautions" (an admission of guilt, which requires no court involvement and goes into the Criminal Record) for being drunken and rowdy or for (lightly) discipling their own kids.
I've lived in 3 European countries by now and this is the only one where I don't trust the police (which is kinda sad since I'm from Portugal, a country where people look up to the UK as a better place)
Not that I blame the lowly copper: at the core of the current rot are the power hungry politicians and money driven high-level officers.
I guess that people are getting what they deserve around here: the British electorate keeps voting on the same two sets of visibly lying, deceitfull, sleazy and two-faced politicians (or not voting at all) - these guys are so exceptionally untrustworthy (at least compared with Dutch and Portuguese politicians) that they are caught cheating and lying so often it's not fun anymore.
The headline is incorrect: it's not UK police, it's English Police who hold onto DNA. DNA samples, and profiles, are routinely destroyed at the end of the relevant enquiry in Scotland, which is a quite distinct legal jurisdiction from England.
You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but I must warn you that if you fail to mention any fact which you rely on in your defence in court, your failure to take this opportunity to mention it may be treated in court as supporting any relevant evidence against you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#England_and_Wales
It's almost funny:
I spent a lot of the summer reading about AI and the various problems you can run into trying to train your AI to do a task. Quite often it will find a flaw in your measurement system.
Example: a robotic vacume cleaner which gets points for picking up dust... but no penalty for dumping its dust so it just dumps and picks up the same stuff in a loop.
Now machines do this mindlessly and with no malice.
Humans do the exact same thing knowing fully that they're screwing everyone else.
You're right on the money.
Under Thatcher, it was common practice to harass anyone who resembled a 'hippy'. If you had dreadlocks, attended festivals and wore scruffy clothes; you expected the police to come crashing through your window at night. I can't express strongly enough how often and intensely they were 'attacked' by the police. They'd be repeatedly harassed and then accused of being unfit parents for bringing them up in such a dangerous environment where the police keep scaring them at night.
Unfortunately, these cases weren't reported in the media. Read the included article and you'll instantly see the police's mindset and understand why it wasn't reported. Hippies were a national threat.
The Battle of Beanfield.
A video of the Battle of Beanfield. (contains disturbing scenes).