MPs: Government DNA policy “unacceptable”

About five million UK citizens have their personal profiles recorded on the National DNA Database, 20% of them have no record of any offence on the Police National Computer – but all records are currently held in perpetuity. 

 

"The current situation of indefinite retention of the DNA profiles of those arrested but not convicted is impossible to defend in light of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights and unacceptable in principle," the Committee has said.

 

The government says it is happy to cut the time to six years, responding to attempts to get it to order the destruction of the wealth of genetic profiling information on the Database currently held years after its capture during a police interrogation.  

 

The six year figure was also its best compromise after the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 2009 told the UK it couldn't carry on planning to hold this information indefinitely, as it currently does (except at the discretion of chief constables). However, the committee says such material should be discarded within three years if it comes from an individual not convicted of a crime. 

 

The six year retention period was also been attacked last December by the UK's human rights watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission. 

 

Now MPs want this compromise limit cut in half. "We are not convinced that [retention] for six years would result in more cases being cleared up — let alone more convictions obtained — than retaining them for three," the Committee noted, while it rejected calls for data to be expunged permanently as soon as a suspect in a crime is released, and argued the benefit to public safety of retention for a three year period outweighs the impact on individual privacy.

 

The Crime and Security Bill, which would make any proposed changes, is still on the statute book and formally due to be debated before the election. 

 

The Committee is reviewing evidence that suggested 0.3% of crimes result in conviction as a result of DNA evidence - but it said DNA profiling and matching are "vital tools in the fight against crime".