The DNA of thousands of innocent people aged 16 and over
are to be held on a national database for up to six years, under
new government plans.
The government agreed to revise its policy after condemnation by
the European Court of Human Rights, opposition by rights groups and
public outcry over the issue.
But the new plans merely halve the time originally proposed to
retain DNA samples of all people held by police, regardless of
whether they are found guilty of an offence, according to
The Independent.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last year condemned
the policy as indiscriminate and illegal, but since then
400,000 profiles have been added to the database, with at least
a quarter of those samples from people not found guilty of an
offence.
It emerged last month that more than one in 10 people, 5.5m in
England and Wales, now have their details stored on the DNA
database.
It includes up to 850,000 DNA profiles, plus a similar number of
fingerprints, of people never convicted of a crime, according to
The Telegraph.
Civil liberty groups have criticised home secretary Alan Johnson
for failing to remove the DNA of innocent people from the
database.
The grudgingly modified policy will create a repeat collision
course with the courts, said Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty.
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said the home secretary
does not seem to understand that the fundamental principle of
innocent until proven guilty is at stake.