A leading DNA scientist whose work led to the creation of the
DNA database has called for innocent people to be removed from
it.
Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of genetic fingerprinting, says
forcing innocent people to remain on the database will erode public
support for the project.
Currently anyone who is arrested is added to the database,
whether or not they go on to be convicted. It now has 5 million
people on it.
Jeffreys said he is concerned about what appears to be hundreds
of thousands of innocent people swelling the database beyond its
proper size.
He told
The Guardian, "My view is very clear that if you have been
convicted of a crime then you owe it to society to be retained on
that database for catching in the future should you reoffend. But
the retention of entirely innocent people is a whole different
issue. There is a sort of presumption here that if they have not
committed any crime now, then they will in the future."
A recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights said that
the government's policy of retaining the genetic details of
innocent people broke their right to
privacy. There are reports that the government's response to
this ruling will be to remove the profiles of people without
convictions, but to keep their DNA on the database. Jeffreys said
these reports left him "almost speechless".
It was Jeffrey's work in the 1980s that led to the use of
genetic fingerprinting in police investigations, and enabled the
founding of the DNA database.
The Home Office has said that keeping genetic details of
everyone arrested helps solve crimes, but Jeffreys said putting a
few hundred thousand random people onto the database would have the
same effect. He added, "There are serious issues of discrimination
and stigmatisation of branches of society that are over-represented
on the database."