Hattix

Some recent high profile criminal investigations in which DNA evidence has played a key role (e.g. Mark Dixie, Steve Wright) have brought up the suggestion of a national DNA database, citing examples where if DNA had been on file, the guilty party would have been identified and caught much sooner, possibly averting a future offence, perhaps even saving lives.

Arguing against that is going to be extremely difficult but it must be done. It is fingerprinting the entire population from birth. It’s more than just fingerprinting, since two fingerprints can be very similar, it’s taking your very identity and storing it on file.

The problem is that the current paradigm is “if your DNA was there, so were you” when this is not the case. Let’s say I want to kill someone. I’m careful about it, I wear rubber gloves which I then incinerate, etc. I also leave a few traces of someone else’s hair there. Maybe I sat behind them on the bus and just picked it up from the seat. That someone is then convicted of murder on DNA evidence, I walk free.

Right now, DNA is taken on the successful conviction of an offence (actually, it’s taken during prosecution, but must be destroyed if the prosecution fails) and it covers four and half million Britons, or one in every thirteen of us. Yes, even petty theft or a drunken brawl.

Detective Superintendant Cundy, who headed the investigation into Mike Bowman’s conviction of murder, claimed that “a national DNA register - with all its appropriate safeguards - could have identified Sally Anne’s murderer within 24 hours” and we’re left wondering what those safeguards may be. The police got their man and successfully prosecuted him, is it really necessary to fingerprint us all to save a few days or weeks of an investigation?

What if we fall under the hands of an oppressive government, such as the BNP, who would use such information to racially profile people who could then be deported or otherwise oppressed? What if eugenics comes back into vogue, as it was in the mid-20th century, and you’re found to be a carrier of a genetic disease and barred from having children? That’s a “what if” scenario and, in democracy, the “what ifs” are the most important questions.

It can’t be allowed to happen, we cannot predict the actions of a future government. We must always assume the worst if we have any hope of defending ourselves from it. We must not give power to the government which they can abuse, it is our only mechanism of ensuring they do not abuse it.