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Bad hair day for Police DNA zealots
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/Marcus-Lasance?id=25
Submitted by
LASANCE
15 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 21 hours agoThe tide is turning against the big brother DNA data base the Association of Chief Police Officers would like us all to subscribe to. Some have even made the comparison to the Poll Tax rebellion.
#1 - By LASANCE, 15 months, 1 week, 8 days, 20 hours ago.
This is the actual recommendation from the the Ethics Group: National DNA Database, chaired by Prof. Peter Hutton:
Recommendation H: Consideration should be given to reviewing the definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ and ensuring that the reasons for the retention of data and samples are aligned with data protection legislation, human rights legislation and the concept of proportionality.
further more noteworthy are the following conclusions: #2 - By LASANCE, 14 months, 1 week, 13 days, 5 hours ago.
This is the actual response I got from the home office regarding my question about the legality of the Police hanging on to the DNA of non-convicted people they arrest:
Direct Communications Unit Mr Marcus Lasance Reference: T16450/8 15 August 2008 Dear Mr Lasance, Thank you for your e-mail of 18 July to the Home Secretary about retention of DNA samples.. As I am sure you will appreciate, the Home Secretary receives a vast amount of correspondence which she cannot reply personally. Your letter has been passed to the Direct Communications Unit and I have been asked to reply. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 as amended, the police may take, without consent, DNA and fingerprints from persons who have been arrested for, charged with, informed they will be reported for or convicted of a recordable offence. Under section 82 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, PACE was amended to remove the requirement on the police to destroy the samples taken from people who have been acquitted or against whom charges have been dropped or not proceeded with. The samples may only be used for the purposes of prevention and detection of crime, the investigation of an offence, the conduct of a prosecution or, since April 2005, for the purposes of identifying a deceased person. The amendment in the 2001 Act arose from decisions in the Court of Appeal relating to two cases where compelling DNA evidence that linked one suspect to a murder and another to a rape could not be used and neither man could be convicted. This was because at the time the matches were made both defendants had either been acquitted or a decision had been made not to proceed with the offences for which the DNA profiles had been taken. At that time, section 64 of PACE specified that in these circumstances the sample had to be destroyed and the information derived from it could not be used. Fingerprints and DNA profiles are useful, objective forms of evidence that can be used to help establish guilt or innocence. Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear from having their fingerprints and DNA retained on a database. The only time they would be used is if a match were shown between the individual’s fingerprints or DNA profile and those recovered from a crime scene. Early research has in fact shown that since the amendment to PACE made by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, sampling persons who have been arrested but not proceeded against has yielded a match with a crime scene stain in over 3000 offences. These links may never have been made had the police not been given powers to take and retain DNA samples on arrest. I hope you find this information helpful. ( ML Comment: No actually your usual Home Office propaganda. Nuff said ;-) Yours sincerely,
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