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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."
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.
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!
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.