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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."
Sorry, but at the way the UK (as well as other countries around the globe) are evolving way beyond Orwell's '84, you didn't really believe them, did you? Honestly?
The concept of "search warrants" for ANY country is a rather dubious legal claim when the authorities have so many excuses to disregard civil liberties.
What you neglect to say is that of course the same goes for any motivated and funded person/organisation. Hell even a cult could do this (didn't scientology pull something similar a few years back ?)
The point is that if the government does this, and they fail to provide a legal explanation of how they acquired said evidence, that you go free (in western legal systems). No matter how direct the evidence against you that was acquired serrupticiously.
In a hypothetical case if a policeman sees you standing over a dead body with a bloody knife in your hands screaming "I'm glad I killed the bastard", then breaks down the window and arrests you. If it turns out the policeman had no legal reason to be there, they will not only have to let you go free, but they will have to pay for the broken window, and pay for a new shirt that was damaged by the glass.
So the police CAN do this, obviously. But it's futile and dangerous for them. If you commit a crime now, and they base their case against you on DNA evidence, you're automatically innocent.
That's the 1994 Act, and the evidence cannot be "disregarded"; all that it allows is that the court "may draw such inferences from the failure [to disclose it] as appear proper."
Your law tutor certainly sounds like a kind chap or chapette.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.