Lords votes in favour of DNA-deletion process

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Kable

Published: 06 Nov 2008 09:55 GMT

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The government has been defeated by the House of Lords over the retention of DNA and fingerprints.

The Lords voted 161 to 150 for a Conservative amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Bill, which would create a process for innocent people to apply to have their DNA and fingerprints removed from the national databases.

Baroness Hanham, who proposed the amendment, said she was aiming to spark a national debate. "There is no transparency in the current situation and the dice are severely loaded against innocent people being able to ensure that their most personal details are not kept indefinitely following their exclusion, either by a court or following a decision that there is no reason for them to be involved further in any inquiry," she told the Lords on 4 November, 2008.

She said that at present, "the initial response to a request for destruction is an automatic refusal", with the police guidelines recommending that those applying are automatically refused, although chief police officers have the discretion to do this in exceptional cases. "The balance at present is not in favour of the innocent," she concluded.

Lord West of Spithead replied that the inclusion of a DNA profile on the database does not indicate innocence or guilt. He said the requirement to destroy samples from those acquitted or those against whom charges had been dropped followed two Court of Appeal cases which did not lead to convictions due to the previous rules.

Baroness Hanham replied: "Those who are innocent should not be on any database. They should not be under the eye of the law of this country. They are innocent. They have no truck with the law and their DNA should not passed to Europe for whatever reason simply because it is a chunk of information that the police hold."

The UK's National DNA Database is one of the biggest in the world. On 30 June, it held 4,503,186 records, representing more than seven percent of the population. On 31 March, the database included 857,366 people who did not have a current criminal record on the Police National Computer, according to a parliamentary written answer provided on 4 November.

A current European court case, in which two Britons are challenging the retention of their DNA, may also force a change in government policy.

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