In what is being described as a ‘U-Turn’, the UK’s Home Office has dropped its plans to store information of innocent people on its national DNA database.

After a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights last year saying that the UK could not hold onto DNA data of innocent people. The Home Office’s response was that it would only hold onto the information for a limited time, possibly of up to 12 years.

But that decision has now been scrapped and a new version of the Policing and Crime Bill will no longer contain these proposals.

Alex Jeffreys, inventor of DNA fingerprinting has been vocal about his concerns surrounding storing people’s genetic information. But some observers are hinting that this saga is not over yet, Jeffreys may still have reason to worry. Writing on the Guardian’s website, columnist Henry Porter suggests that the bill, including the provision for storing DNA data, will return in a future parliamentary session.

But for now human rights activists are claiming victory. Liberty, a human rights organisation, says that the retreat is “sensible and tactical”. “Stockpiling the intimate details of millions of innocents is bad enough without ducking public and parliamentary scrutiny by sneaking regulations in by the back door,” says Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty.

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