[cs_t1]

The entire UK population and every visitor to Britain should be put on the national DNA database, a top judge said today.
Lord Justice Sedley, one of England's most experienced appeal court judges, described the country's current system as "indefensible".

"We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, then your DNA is on permanent record. If you haven't, it isn't ... that's broadly the picture," Sir Stephen Sedley told the BBC.

"It also means that a great many people who are walking the streets, and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free."

He said that expanding the existing database to cover the whole population had "serious but manageable implications".

But he warned that putting everybody's DNA on file should be "for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention".

Britain's 12-year-old DNA database is the largest of any country in the world, growing by 30,000 samples a month. According to the Home Office website, 5.2% of the UK population is on the database, compared with 0.5% in the US. (The Guardian - Sept 2007)

Articles like this are becoming more common in the press and media. Is this a genuine growing concern? What is wrong with having a everyone's DNA on a database if it saves lives or prevents crimes? It's only people that commit criminal offences that are going to be caught by the system, what do the innocent have to fear?

Should we adopt a national database to reduce crime in the UK or totally reject it as an infringement of liberty?

[cs_43]

It's invasion in our privacy and shouldn't be done!

[rutc_s21]

i agreee it is an invasion of priviacy and it could also allow prejucdice's to be carried out. and in a worst case scenario a genocide could easily be commited when the government knows exactly who you are and where you are from

[rutc_s1]

It would be hugely expensive to set up and maintain. Allow it!

[rutc_s16]

DNA profiling may be an invasion of our privacy, but don't the benefits of it outweigh this?
If we are all put on a National Database then there will be a larger pool to compare DNA samples and therefore a smaller chance that the wrong person will be convicted. The DNA sample will be a more accurate match to individuals on the database, compared to if there is only a restricted pool of those who have been arrested. Surely we should take comfort in the knowledge that more criminals will be caught with this extended National Database.

[rutc_s18]

In my opinion we should not have a national database....
So it could manage to put some criminals into prison but what about those that are innocent that have been incriminated for a crime?
As people would know that DNA profiling is going to be used for evidence then they would not be deterred from the crime as they could manage to set up other people.

Further more who could get their hands on the database?
As it would be stored on a computer what if it crashed etc?
Or got hacked our government is not the most reliable!!!

Lastly it would be well expensive to maintain.

[rutc_s23]

I think that national DNA profiling is a good idea because it would give a larger basis of comparison for matching the DNA of a criminal to the DNA found at a crime scene...so more criminals will be convicted. However...............................................there is the concern of wrongful convictions and insurance companies that may be interested so that predisposition to a genetic disease could be tested for. This would then be a disadvantage for people with diseases.

[rutc_s7]

In my opinion, storing everyone's DNA on a National database would mean too much control over people. I find the idea of being tracked down to my every whereabouts rather frightening. It would lead to people being overly concious of where they leave their DNA traces. Also, if DNA profiles are stored on a database, how long will it be before they start storing our gene codes too?

[rutc_s22]

Many would argue that it's an invasion of our privacy and another step closer to becoming a 'nanny state', but having a national database is needed as it will create a lot more time for those investigating to do other things, like investigating other crimes. If this will cause many more to be convicted, won't this override our prisons even more, where there is hardly any space in them at the moment.

[rutc_s13]

I believe that having this system would be use useful but we have to consider the risk factor would be that mistakes can occur and would be a breech of privacy to all .

[rutc_s8]

[rutc_s14]

Having your DNA on a DNA database is not actually harmful to you in any way. Having everybodies DNA on a database will make it easier for police to identify and convict criminals.

However we think if such a database was made, it should be under very tight security and only The Home Office and maybe the NHS should have access to it to prevent the DNA information being used for the wrong purposes.

[cs_t1]

On Radio 4 today, on the 'You and Yours' programme, listeners were invited to put their questions to David Davis on the topic, 'do you agree with him that the country is witnessing a slow stranglution of fundemental British freedoms.' I just caught the end of it but heard the word' database' about twenty times so I thought it might be useful. Anyone can listen to the programme again through this link...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/

It seems to me that there is a bit of a theme going on here. Are the UK public being squeezed in all directions, so much so that our basic human rights and freedom are being violated? Alternatively, will the UK control its crime while the rest of the world descends into chaos over the coming years? Maybe, although it hurts, this is for the best. If we did have a UK DNA database, would the need-fuelled crime be overcome by the fear of being caught immediately. Perhaps the UK could become crime free as a result of stringent observation, monitoring and law?

[cs_t1]

Oh, and while I think about it AND refering to rutc_s14's last comment, the programme mentioned the NHS database being manned by thousands of low-paid, part-time and often, immigrant, workers who might not be the most secure employees. How can the government ensure that no-one steals data from a potential DNA database from the inside? Just think about the profile of a typical call centre worker (often Sixth Formers) and the info they can see about you right now. I tremble at the thought.

[cs_32]

I believe that the database will be very beneficial in reducing crime. Referring to rutc_s22 about prisons being too full already, I think this will only be the short term effects as previous and going investigations will be solved more easily. In the long term, I think it will reduce that amount
of crime committes as committing a crime and getting away with it will be more difficult,so I believe that less people will committ a crime.


The question is, can the government be trusted with our personal details? There have already been recent events where personal details have been left 'lying around' for example, the incident where peoples personal details were left by a government official on a train. Furthermore, hackers could also get personal details from the database, which could lead to you being convicted of the wrong crime as people could plant your DNA to cover up their tracks.

Overall, I think that the database is a good idea as long as we are guaranteed that the our details will be kept safe.