The British government is planning to get around a European court ruling that condemned the UK’s retention of the DNA profiles of more than 800,000 innocent people by keeping the original samples used to create the database.
A damning ruling last December criticized the “blanket and indiscriminate nature” of the UK’s current DNA database — which includes DNA from those never charged with an offense — and said the government had overstepped acceptable limits of storing data for crime detection.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said last month that she would publish a white paper setting out “a more proportionate, fair and commonsense approach,” but she has not given any indication whether DNA samples already obtained would be destroyed.
However, Home Office sources said the government, which was given three months to respond to the ruling, has “no plans” to destroy samples of DNA.
The revelation raises questions about the extent of the government’s response to the court’s findings and prompted fresh criticism on Thursday night of its “surveillance state” ambitions.
The Guardian revealed earlier this week the scale of government plans to mine data on innocent citizens from public and private databases in order to enhance the fight against terrorism.
Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, Justice Secretary Jack Straw accepts he must climb down on a controversial clause in the coroners’ and justice bill, which civil liberties critics have warned is too vague and widely drawn. Straw admits there are “justifiable concerns” that personal data — from medical records to the identity card register — could be used for purposes far removed from their original intention.
The concerns over handling DNA samples come as the Home Office has set out amendments to the police and crime bill which would give the home secretary power to make new regulations about the retention of DNA, without further parliamentary scrutiny.
Experts believe the government will respond to the European court by reforming the database using the Scottish model, where DNA is not retained from innocent people except in cases of arrest over sexual and violent offences.
The shadow Home Office minister James Brokenshire criticized the government for attempting to take more control over DNA retention at a time when the European court was expressing concern over Britain’s appetite for expansion.
Since its foundation in 1995, the database has become the world’s largest. Of its 5 million entries, more than a million are children and 857,000 are innocent people.
Home Office and police sources have said measures are under way to collect stronger evidence of how the database is used to solve crime. The measures come after the court said it would need “weighty reasons” before it would accept the current scale of the database, and raise concerns that the government may seek to overturn the findings by showing the current scale of the database has played a role in solving crime.
Any attempts to retain the DNA samples already taken are likely to meet with vigorous protests from civil liberties groups.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS