Home Office climbs down over keeping DNA records on innocent

Civil liberty campaigners claimed a victory today after the government announced it is dropping current proposals to retain the DNA profiles of innocent people on the national database.

The Home Office has announced that its plan to keep the DNA profiles of those arrested – but never convicted of a crime – for between six and 12 years depending on the seriousness of the offence has been dropped from the policing and crime bill that is going through parliament.

A European court ruling in December found it was unlawful to keep the DNA details of 850,000 innocent people indefinitely on the national database.

The authors of the research on which Home Office ministers based their plan had disowned the proposals. The Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science said its work should not have been used to decide the six- to 12-year time limits because the work was unfinished.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/19/innocent-dna-database