UK Police Promise Not To Retain DNA Data, But Do Anyway 372
redalien writes "In 2008 I invited two policemen into my home and voluntarily gave them a DNA and fingerprint sample to help with a murder investigation, as they'd promised it would only be used for that investigation. I was never under any suspicion and could just as easily have said no. Almost a year after the investigation closed they have now confirmed that they've retained my samples and at my request have begun an investigation to see if there are sufficient 'exceptional circumstances' to remove them. I'm not the only one who was told samples would be removed, so if you've had such a promise from the police I recommend contacting their data protection registrar immediately."
Freedom is a lie (Score:5, Interesting)
Its funny. Im a Brit living abroad in a former soviet Country for the last two years, and the more I see the more I realise how big our illusion of freedom is in the UK.
We have more Security Cameras than anyone. Our government wants to record every website, email and text number used. We are profiled beyond compare.. Even our internet private is monitored.. :)
1984
You have more chance of being free elsewhere.
Re:Freedom is a lie (Score:1, Interesting)
I've considered relocating to the UK, I'd be bringing jobs not taking jobs. I have to admit my two biggest concerns are the crippling taxes, everything seems to be taxed, and the feeling of being under a microscope. I love the country but those two things make relocating there a tough choice. In truth I'm not sure which one concerns me more.
Do not cooperate with the police (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, do not ever again help the police. Sure, follow their instructions when within the law. But helping the police does not help YOU at all and might seriously endanger yourself. If the samples were contaminated or mixed up, you could have found yourself in jail.
Watch the presentations by Professor James Duane of Stanford University:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=NL&v=i8z7NC5sgik [youtube.com]
Re:Do not cooperate with the police (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hairdressers (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, presumably the police having your DNA *on file* increases the likelihood that you'll be hauled in by them for other things, should there be a spurious match (say). And regardless, if they're keeping personal information they promised not to keep then that's a serious moral issue regardless of the practical consequences - can people trust the police at their word? Should they?
Re:You believed them when the promised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Something bugs me whenever someone brings up "don't talk to the police" as a general rule. (Before I go on, let me say that I'm a libertarian and, while I find that the majority of police officers are good and honorable people, no police force is worthy of blind trust and it is every citizen's duty to keep governmental power to a pragmatic minimum.) The OP said that he volunteered the DNA during a murder investigation. Perhaps the victim was someone close to him, and he had an interest in helping the investigation along as much as possible, perhaps even by volunteering evidence so as to eliminate himself as a suspect so the police could move on sooner. How does one balance an altruistic need to volunteer information to the police against the general "don't talk to the police" principle of avoiding self-incrimination?
Re:Do not cooperate with the police (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a good question. There are several ways of looking at it. For example:
The "missing little Girl" is your daughter. The Police are knocking on your neighbour's doors. You now have to face the fact that some of your neighbours might be finding it hard to offer the Police complete support - at least partly because the Police have previously acted in ways which reduced the public's confidence in the Police.
How do you feel ? Who do you blame ?
I would much prefer to live in a society where "Policing by Consent" still means something. Policing by consent is in the overwhelming interest of all law abiding people.
One requirement for "Policing by Consent" is that the Police understand and support their side of the bargain. Another requirement is that the legal system and government maintains a certain level of basic confidence and support. I believe the UK currently has some serious problems with all those things and we are all worse off because of it.
Re:Do not cooperate with the police (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a good question. There are several ways of looking at it/p>
There's still another way of looking at it. You don't have to talk to the police to be helpful. You could instead just help your neighbors directly.
Re:NEVER talk to the police. (Score:3, Interesting)
So as I understand it - from what I thought was 'if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court' you should make sure that you mention in a police interview anything that you may wish to mention in court. Am I right in presuming that you are entitled to a solicitor during a police interview?
Wikipedia seems to back this up - "Adverse inferences may be drawn in certain circumstances where before or on being charged, the accused fails to mention a specific fact which he later relies upon and which in the circumstances at the time the accused could reasonably be expected to mention. If this failure occurs at an authorised place of detention (e.g. a police station), no inferences can be drawn from any failure occurring before the accused is allowed an opportunity to consult a legal advisor. Section 34 of the 1994 reverses the common law position that such failures could not be relied upon." - so basically there should be no prejudice if you don't answer or state anything until you have a lawyer present, but if you decide to mention it in court having not mentioned it during police questioning then the jury may infer that there was some reason or motive for you not mentioning it earlier
To be fair this seems pretty reasonable. However if I get arrested I will not be answering any questions until a solicitor is present. A friend of mine was arrested, and was treated respectfully by the police, assured that answering questions now would make everything easier later etc. etc. and then when he came to court all his statements are read out by the officers, out of context and with their 'interpretation' of his meaning, needless to say not to his benefit. Hardly seems like the reasonable actions they promised. In the unlikely event that I get arrested I will not be answering anything until I have some legal advice present, since it seems that without such advice the treatment received by someone who does not know the 'system' from the police is somewhat unfair.
I have a lot of respect for the police and the job they do, however it is eroded by behaviour such as this, which attempts to take essentially law abiding and honest people to the cleaners because they don't know how to get away with things unlike the chavs who are in the nick every week and know every trick to make life difficult for the police
Re:You believed them when the promised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could you tell us more about these target systems? Thanks.
Hmm, there's gotta be a WP article to link to at this point, but I can't find a good 'un.
A lot of game theory was based on the idea that people are not actually altruistic. Combined with the fiefdoms that existed within the UK civil service, the government came up with the idea of creating a Free Market of rewards to measure and assess the performance of state employees.
Massively simplified, if a policeman solves a crime, he gets a point towards his next pay rise or promotion. But it appears that solving something like a rape is worth the same as solving a crime like drug possession. Considering that to solve a rape, it would require many hours of police work, getting an error free case to court, etc.. But solving a case of pot possession is as simple as
"I'm going to search you under section 44". Pat-down... "Is this your weed?"
"Yes"
"Do you accept this police caution"
"Yes"
Case closed, achievement unlocked.
The effect is that the police focus on simple (usually victimless) crimes, not ones that require actual police work!
A real world example of targets being gamed to the detriment of everyone is the target in hospitals to get the time reduced from when someone comes into an A&E department and when they are seen. What some hospitals did was to simply get a nurse to go round the waiting room and greet people. Bang, patients interacted with by medical staff, times reduced, targets hit.
The excellent films by Adam Curtis [wikimedia.org] give a lot of insight into the modern world. The films that make up The Trap [wikimedia.org] talk about targets, and some of their real world consequences.
Re:WAIVE NOTHING..EVER..EVER!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that some judgement is necessary. The UK police are driven entirely by targets (rather than the interest of the community) which means that they are desperate for arrests. If you are arrested for something then being a reasonable person, 'helping them out', 'making it easier for yourself' etc. (e.g. answering questions or making statements in the absence of legal counsel) is a way of them shoring up their case against you without some pesky lawyer stopping you from incriminating yourself.
Contrast this with people who have regular dealings with the police, and know the system and how to minimise what the police can do to them. In an ideal world some common sense would be used (and apparently was once) and someone who has otherwise been an upstanding member of the community would not have the book thrown at them by the police, whilst someone who was a regular trouble maker would have a more determined effort to seek prosecution made. This is not the case, and if you are cooperative etc. that just means that you are making it easier for them to add a couple of other charges.
Obviously if you have done nothing wrong (as the poster above) then help them out because they know a waste of time when they see it, and they've got those damn targets to meet. But if you have done something, then it really is in your best interests to make sure that you only get prosecuted for what you have actually done, not for what you somehow admitted to when you were helpfully answering questions. It's like the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. One is legal and nigh on encouraged, the other isn't. Like tax, if a prosecution is inevitable, that doesn't mean you're going to go out and look for as much of it as possible does it?
It is a shame that this is the state of affairs, but the police are not around to use common sense these days. I have friends who are police officers, who have been told that 'we've solved enough rape cases this month, we need to catch up on shoplifters'. Because that's what the community they would serve wants - numbers that add up - not for perhaps some violent sexual assailant to be jailed, but for some kids who stole some sweets to be put through the grinder.
Re:Freedom is a lie (Score:1, Interesting)
You are an idiot.
Currently we are a discussion on what rights there are around storing DNA in the UK. This will eventually find a sensible balance. It probably won't be resolved until someone has their improperly collected DNA used against them in a court. In the meantime, the issue is discussed freely in the media, Parliament, the Lords and in Europe. This is not the illusions of freedom. This is freedom in a modern, mature democracy.
If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in trouble with the police in your 'free' former Soviet country, I hope you have sufficient money / contacts to get out of trouble.
Indications of the slashdot 'freedom' idiot:
1) Wittering on about security cameras. There are two options here, either you're so much cleverer than everyone else who has failed to spot / understand the potential problems with the cameras, or everybody else knows that they are so useless that their only use is to deter chavs.
2) Quoting 1984. A book that you've obviously never read nor have the faintest idea of the contents of.
Re:NEVER talk to the police. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, it does. Even in the UK, you have the right to remain silent.
But unlike in the US it is not a defense and is normally interpreted by officers as an admittance of guilt. Not mentioning something is just as dangerous as mentioning something in court, unless you've got an alibi if you don't mention something at the moment it'll be disregarded later, basically if you don't say you were somewhere they'll decide where you were and unless you've got an alibi in court your where THEY decide.
In my dealings with police I find the best response is to agree with them as much as possible without actually saying anything. Eg "We're searching you because this is a suspicious area, why are you here?" "This is a suspicious area, I'm often concerned walking here at night but this type of regular policing should help" and end sentence, dont make another noise until you've been given another question. The officers mental response should be something like "WTF? He's supposed to be suspicious?!? Not like a politician?!? This is so weird!! Wait, what was I doing?".
Re:You believed them when the promised? (Score:5, Interesting)
A real world example of targets being gamed to the detriment of everyone is the target in hospitals to get the time reduced from when someone comes into an A&E department and when they are seen. What some hospitals did was to simply get a nurse to go round the waiting room and greet people. Bang, patients interacted with by medical staff, times reduced, targets hit.
More infamously, if they slipped up and let somebody wait for longer than the target time, that person would be lucky to get attended to at all, because the hospital had lost that "point" already and so would concentrate on points that they could still earn. The UK government has largely replaced measurement as a tool of management with measurement as management, in the name of objectivity (making rewards and penalties automatic on the results of measurement, rather than the measurements triggering humans to look at what is going on). The results are not pretty.
Re:NEVER talk to the police. (Score:2, Interesting)
So as I understand it - from what I thought was 'if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court' you should make sure that you mention in a police interview anything that you may wish to mention in court. Am I right in presuming that you are entitled to a solicitor during a police interview?
There isn't actually an official caution, so you do see local variations. But to answer your questions yes and no in that order. They aren't necessarily qualified solicitors but are qualified legal advisors. By "mention" it does not have to be verbal - quite often a prisoner and their legal rep will chat in private (another guaranteed right) and prepare a written statement but then not answer any further questions. The legal advisor will ensure the prisoner is not questioned inappropriately (ie between tapes), and they also act as a separate witness to the sealing of interview tapes so they cannot be tampered with. Typically, the legal advisor and police officers will discuss the matters of the case prior to the legal advisor speaking to the prisoner, so they can advise them appropriately (eg whether there is no harm in being candid or whether they should not answer particular questions until further enquiries are complete or particular evidence is obtained).
Following that, a separate CPS lawyer reviews evidence and they not the police make a decision to charge the prisoner with a specific offence. The danger in not answering questions is that if there is sufficient evidence to charge someone at that point (bearing in mind they prisoner cannot be questioned further) and it is a serious offence, you could get remanded in custody pending your first court appearance. If you are candid and provide the police with information, they are duty-bound to go and follow it up. There is more likelihood that you are then given police bail to return to the police at a later date for further questioning.
A lot of old-school coppers berate PACE saying it favours the criminal, but actually it drastically reduces the chances for miscarriages of justice because it guarantees the criminal/prisoner an opportunity to have their say and an opportunity to have or take legal advice any time whilst they are in custody, the benefit of which is that it is also explained to the prisoner on tape. Just remember that it's nothing like what you see on The Bill ;o)
PACE also makes it harder for a prisoner to be abused or coerced (unlike the pre-PACE days) because their detention is authorised by a Custody Sergeant and reviewed every 4 hours by a police Inspector, so it would require large-scale abuse of power or authority to carry out.
Re:You believed them when the promised? (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't really matter whether the majority of police officers are "good and honorable people" (which is probably doubtful anyway since it's a profession that attracts bullies disproportionately). What does matter is that it's their job to get you. That's right, they're out to get you. Any law professor will tell you that they are allowed to lie to you at any time, and do a couple of other things to you, just to catch you for something, preferably for the crime they're investigating. They have no incentive whatsoever to make sure they get the right guy, their only job is to get someone convicted.
Take for example this case. A guy was found stabbed in a cupboard. They had no clue who might have done it. Finally, it was decided that he actually stabbed himself and then put himself in a cupboard. You have to wonder, why did the police go around collecting DNA samples in the first place if there was no foreign DNA on the crime scene to begin with. Clearly, either DNA was collected from random people in the hope of getting them convicted for any other crime, or the final conclusion that the guy stabbed himself is another lie to make their crime solving statistics look good after months of fruitless investigation.
By the way, while the individual likelihood of being misidentified through your DNA markers as a match for one given piece of evidence is very small, your chance "matching" some completely random piece of evidence among the millions they got lying around is actually getting higher with increasing database size. So if your DNA is on file, and is routinely compared to every new piece of evidence that comes in, an individual's chance of being framed by the birthday paradox is higher than one might think.
Re:NEVER talk to the police. (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine was arrested, and was treated respectfully by the police, assured that answering questions now would make everything easier later etc. etc. and then when he came to court all his statements are read out by the officers, out of context and with their 'interpretation' of his meaning, needless to say not to his benefit. Hardly seems like the reasonable actions they promised.
If you or I lie to the police it is "perverting the course of justice". If they lie to us it's "well done, you've made sarge".
"Fuck 'em, and their law".
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You believed them when the promised? (Score:2, Interesting)
There was similar thing with trains. If a service was late by more than a certain amount of time they'd cancel it, because the fixed penalty for that was lower than the one worked out per minute.
Re:You believed them when the promised? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:NEVER talk to the police. (Score:3, Interesting)
That is not the case. The wording of the caution is that if you do not mention anything when questioned that you later use in your defence, that may prejudice your defence.
That is to say: a prosecuting barrister is, these days, within their rights to sneer and imply to the jury that what you've said in that regard was clearly made up after the fact.
Re:Not the first (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not the first (Score:1, Interesting)
However, one might argue that there a margin of error in all evidence and 0.2% error is far better than probably all other types.
Re:Not the first (Score:4, Interesting)
taking some DNA samples, running it through the computer, then arresting the resultant match and passing it on to the courts.
Yet that's the ONLY reason for such a database to exist.