This entry was posted on
Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at
9:05 am and is filed
under The War on Stupid.

Independent – Fury as police file children’s DNA: The Government last night came under fire from MPs and civil liberties campaigners after it emerged that the DNA profiles of 24,000 children who have never been charged or convicted of an offence are stored on the UK database. Tory MP Grant Shapps obtained the Home Office figures when a constituent’s son was wrongly arrested and DNA taken. After protests, the local chief constable agreed to remove the boy’s details, but Mr Shapps then discovered that profiles of 24,000 youngsters aged 10 to 18 were stored.

Telegraph – Police keep DNA files on 24,000 innocent children: The Government defends the current system. However, as political pressure mounted the Association of Chief Police Officers said it is developing guidelines to allow individuals to be removed from the database “in exceptional circumstances”. More than three million Britons have their DNA stored on the database. Since 2002 samples have been linked to evidence at the scenes of 96 murders and 116 rapes.

Chicken Yoghurt – When innocence in no defence: Isn’t that kind? Stuart Hyde: taking the police work out of police work. If some DNA evidence turns up at a crime scene they can run it against the database of all those people just to make sure they’re still innocent. Don’t worry sir, we can re-establish your innocence in a matter of moments. Everyone’s a suspect until the computer says they’re not.