The BBC reports:
Calls to put the DNA of every UK resident on a national database are impractical, the government has said.
Senior police officers have argued for a universal register after two killers were convicted on DNA evidence…
Actually, most people probably would not have any more trouble with a universal DNA database than they would with fingerprinting. The real problem is mistrust of government. This one in particular; and even this Government seems to know that:
…Home Office minister Tony McNulty told BBC that a national database was not a “silver bullet” and that it would raise practical as well as civil liberties issues.
“How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing,” he said.
“Doing that for 60m people is another.”
But some in British law don’t seem to think so:
In September 2007, Lord Justice Sedley - one of England’s most experienced appeal court judges - called for the register to be made universal and condemned the existing system as “indefensible”…
Remarkably, Britons’ freedom in this instance may be better protected by Europe:
…However, the existing register could be threatened when European judges are asked to rule next week on a test case of two Britons who want their details removed from the database.
The applicants say their human rights have been infringed by the decision to leave their details on the database, despite the fact that they had never been found guilty of a crime…
Which is why the notion of putting everyone in is simply out of the question. Police murder investigations will just have to cope with the plain fact that most people are fearful that any “everyone in Britain” DNA database sold initially to assist in murder and, say, rape cases, would invariably suffer from politico info-creep. Before long, they’d be appropriating it somehow for the likes of council tax, “recycling verification”, school attendance confirmation, “road tolls“, TV licenses, and heaven knows what the heck else.
Always, we would also be told, very sensitively . . . and, umm, perfectly reasonably.
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February 23, 2008 at 6:15 pm
power64
I found this poem recently and greatly moved by it…
When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black
And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray
And you calling me colored?