Wed, 01 Nov 2006

Turning Britain into a nation of suspects

Steve Connor writes in the Independent:

One in four men could soon be included on the national DNA database which is helping to turn Britain into a nation of suspects, an expert group has warned.

The database has been established with little or no public consultation but over the past 10 years has collected DNA profiles on more than 3.5 million people, including 24,000 children and youths under the age of 18.

[...]

Sir Bob [Hepple, chairman of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics] said that this implies that the Prime Minister would be happy to see every citizen's DNA profile being stored on the database. "The cost would be enormous but there is also the deeper question - instead of being a nation of citizens we become a nation of suspects," Sir Bob said.

The figures I had included in Is the UK a police state? where from March 2004. A million more DNA samples have been collected since.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is launching a consultation exercise to investigate on a number of questions raised by the ethical issues surrounding the forensic use of bioinformation.


Tomorrow is the third reading of Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.


The Reclaiming our rights conference will be on Saturday 2nd December. Register now! I'll be participating.

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