Last year the European Court of Human Rights told the UK government it couldn’t keep the DNA of innocent people on its police database. Today the UK government announced how it would deal with the ruling, in a response that basically amounts to two fingers to the court.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who has already been beset by controversy this year, wants to keep DNA profiles of innocent people arrested but not convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes for 12 years. Innocent people arrested but not convicted of other crimes would be kept for six years.

Opposition party shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said, “The government just doesn’t get this. People in Britain should be innocent until proven guilty.” (Reuters.)

Civil liberties groups and opinion writers have also reacted with outrage to the proposals.

“At best this is a childish kind of belligerent foot-dragging and at worst it is plain illegal. What is certain is that campaigners will challenge this, and once again Smith will be hauled into court,” writes sometime-comedian and civil rights campaigner mark Thomas, who recently had his own battle with the DNA database, in the Guardian.

The Telegraph adds, “The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that keeping the profiles of innocent people was unlawful. Most reasonable people would assume from this that to comply with the ruling it would be necessary to remove the one million or so people on the database who have never been convicted of any offence. Not a bit of it. The Home Office has come up with an extraordinary ragbag of measures which defy the spirit, if not the letter, of the ruling.”

Not everyone thinks keeping the DNA of innocent people is wrong. Jonathan Myerson, whose family has been demonstrating their resistance to individual privacy for a while, brings out the ‘you only have to worry if you’re a criminal’ line:

… I truly do not understand how my DNA profile sitting in a database limits my rights or freedoms. As long as I remain law-abiding, it is valueless.

See also

New York Times: F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases – 18 April, 2009

Nature: DNA: the new fingerprinting? – January 09, 2009

Nature: Inventor of DNA fingerprinting welcomes a ruling that will keep the innocent out of genetic databases – 8 December 2008

Nature: Police DNA database is criminal – December 04, 2008

Image: Getty