Wednesday 15 July 2009

The letter of the law


An average of 40,000 profiles per month have been added to the National DNA Database since the European Court of Human Rights ruling that the retention of samples from innocent people was illegal under human rights laws.

More than 300,000 profiles have been added since the judgment last December. The figures take the total number of profiles stored on the database to about 5.6 million. See here.

The Home Office agreed to remove DNA profiles taken from innocent people after six or 12 years on the database, stating that the ruling merely obliges it to place a time limit on retention of innocent profiles, not to stop storing them.

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