UK Police Arresting People Just To Add To DNA Database?
from the civil-rights? dept
We were just talking about how pretty much any government database will get abused by government employees eventually. But it's not just on the accessing or revealing of data that this can happen. How about the collection of data as well? Jabberwocky alerts us to the news that police in the UK have supposedly been arresting innocent people just to add them to the UK's DNA database. The report looking into this, sarcastically titled "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?" finds that nearly one in five of the DNA records in the database are from innocent people. And part of that is an "arrest first, ask questions later" policy towards collecting DNA:The commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. "It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained," said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.Oh yeah, to make matters worse: "there is very little concrete evidence on the importance of the DNA match in leading to a conviction and whether the suspect would have been identified by other means anyway." Don't you feel safer now?
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Filed Under: arrests, civil rights, database, dna, privacy
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DNA Replication
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Re: DNA Replication
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Just yesterday I read an article in the Times where some people in the comments were activley clamouring for the entire population (including themselves) to be put in the DNA database. The government somehow have people convinced we are in the middle of a serious crimewave when it seems the reverse is actually true - amazing what you can do with statistics.
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But not nearly as effective in court. Besides, it would probably be harder, politically, for the police to justify building a collection of hair samples.
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Orwell was a F*#$ing Nut
Everyone know how this ends, including those that force it.
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Even the EU has come out against our DNA policy and ordered innocent people to be removed from the database. Of course the police refused that on the basis that the DNA was necessary for crime prevention. They appear to have misunderstood the definition of "innocent", I'm sorely tempted to send the relevant page from the dictionary with it circled to the various chiefs of police.
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Delete the records of non-criminals
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Re: Delete the records of non-criminals
They intend for everyone to be eventually convicted of something. If not now, then later. Keeps people in line.
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Thats not the worst part of this story...
Why aren't people more upset about this? Because we already know our police are racist.
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1984
Oh, I forgot. We already have that in the USA. If you make a disparaging remark about any minority group or person and somebody in that group gets bushwhacked, you can be arrested for inciting that attack. Eureka! A Thought Crime.
And it's only going to get worse.
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If you've got nothing to hide...
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people. I believe Alan Moore said something like that in "V for Vendetta." The real UK is resembling the UK in that novel more and more each day. The US probably isn't too far behind, but is better at keeping it a secret.
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