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Privacy Fears Over UK DNA database 23

Posted by michael from the stunning-realization dept.
jukal writes "An article at BBC about the UK's DNA database as a privacy threat. 'More than 1.5 million DNA profiles are now held on the £187m National DNA Database and the target is to have about three million profiles stored by April 2004. '... this has alarmed the inventor of DNA fingerprinting (Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys), who has now 'launched an outspoken attack on the way the genetic profiles of suspects in the UK who have been cleared of any crime are still stored by the authorities'."
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Privacy Fears Over UK DNA database More

Privacy Fears Over UK DNA database

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  • This could be interesting for genealogy research. You could track down relatives. This would be of special interest to those who were adopted. It could also be used to see how often children really are the offspring of their alleged parents--that could have interesting implications.

  • Good Intentions? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by djiin ( 113861 )
    What is it they say about the road to hell and all that?
    Although Professor Jeffreys is trying to be fair to everybody, all it needs is for a few unscrupulous politicians to become involved to mess up his scheme. Should the database be set up, the firt calls will be asking to extend it to disease markers as money for public health can be better spent when we know which diseases the population is more susceptible to. After that I can see various groups asking for extension after extension for various reasons without respect for the individuals who make up the database.
    What we are better off doing is not storing the information at all. At least then nobody will be tempted to misuse it, and the technique will still be available to law enforcement to eliminate suspects from their enquiries.
  • ...after the Manhattan project, a few of the physicists involved were kind of horrified with how much potential damage the world was looking at and became nuclear weapon opponents.

    Forget which ones, though. Anyone remember names?
    • Supposedly, Einstein said after the first tests, when he saw the destructive power of the bomb: "The only things infinite are the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe".

      The key difference is, of course, that they were building a bomb with no possible "peaceful uses", whereas this guy was building a tools that could have many different positive uses.

    • Re:Sounds like nuclear physicists... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...after the Manhattan project, a few of the physicists involved were kind of horrified with how much potential damage the world was looking at and became nuclear weapon opponents.
      For world-beating physicists, they really were retarded in this respect. "Ok, so, our mission is to build a bomb more powerful and more destructive than any other, to kill large numbers of people." wait a few years "OMG! We've built a bomb more powerful and more destructive than any other, and it may kill large numbers of people! How horrific!"
      • Leo Szilard [dannen.com], the fellow who first realized the possibility of the "chain reaction" which made possible atomic energy and atomic weapons, tried to organize a moratorium on atomic research prior to the outbreak of war. Szilard was Jewish. He was foresightful, and realized how truly terrible Hitler's rule would be. He fled Germany in 1933, the day after Hitler was elected.

        I imagine he was deeply conflicted. He was a key person in getting the Manhattan project started. Groves, the general in charge, didn't trust Szilard. IIRC Szilard had felt, or hoped, that atomic weapons would be demonstrated first, on uninhabited targets. And that their horrific destructive power would be sufficient to induce surrender.

        It bugs me to have you call him stupid.

        Szilard wrote some science fiction stories to explore the guilt he felt over his participation on the bomb. See particularly "My trial as a War Criminal".

    • ...Forget which ones, though. Anyone remember names?

      You are probably thinking of Leo Szilard [dannen.com]. Here is another brief biography [doug-long.com]. Szilard gave up Physics after the war.

      Szilard's circulated a petition [dannen.com] a couple of weeks before the bomb was dropped on Japan, urging the President not to drop it on Japanese cities. 69 of his Manhattan project colleagues chose to sign it with him. The link to the petition above lists the co-signers. The only other name I recognized was Eugene Wigner.

      Wigner, Teller and Szilard -- three Hungarian emigres -- went to Einstein to get him to write Roosevelt the letter credited with getting the the Manhattan Project created. I have read that Einstein dictated the letter to his old friend Szilard. I have read that Szilard drafted the letter, and brought it for Einstein's signature.

  • remember that advice we got from The Simpsons: dont handle those pennies. they'll get our DNA. it's the only reason they're left in circulation.
  • Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys said the practice was highly discriminatory ..... he called for the creation of a national database, storing the profiles of the entire UK population ... "If we're all on the database, we're all in exactly the same boat - the issue of discrimination disappears," he said.

    The discrimination might not be an issue, but its still a huge privacy violation!

  • DNA samples (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ELCarlsson ( 570500 )
    When I joined the military they took a DNA sample from me. It is so that I could be identified if I get seriously f'ed up. But I wonder sometimes if that DNA sample may just be used for other things. Is that sample gonna stay with the military? Will it end up in the police databases?
    I'm no conspiracy theorist but sometimes I do wonder.
  • How is this any different from the police keeping people's fingerprints on file?

    • Re:Fingerprints? (Score:2, Informative)

      by MutantEnemy ( 545783 )
      Your fingerprints don't tell tell people how likely you are to develop certain diseases (information that might end up in the hands of Insurance Companies). Worse, it's possible that in the future, DNA might be used to profile people to determine whether they're likely to commit a crime, ie if research shows that certain genes are linked to criminals.

      There are all sorts of implications of DNA storage that don't apply to fingerprints.

    • Fingerprints are destroyed if not guilty. Not DNA (Score:4, Informative)

      by SomethingOrOther ( 521702 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @04:49AM (#4250183) Homepage

      In the UK, you may have your fingerprints taken if you are arrested, but if found not guilty (or only guilty of a civil offence.... including traffic offences) the fiingerprints are destroyed.

      ie In the UK only convicted criminals have there fingerprints on record

      The natioal DNA database will not desrtoy the DNA samples but keeps them indefinately
      even if you are found not guilty or are only convicted of a civil offence including traffic violations!

      There was a huge uproar a year or so ago when strathclyde police began collecting DNA samples from motorists stoped for minor traffic offences. (Although I belive this practice has now stopped, it is still leagl and the DNA is still held on record)

      Something to think about is often when a serious crime has taken place (rape, murder etc), police will often ask for every man in a large area to submit a DNA sample. Fair enough, many people do in order to catch the bastard resopnsable. However these samples are not destroied but are kept indefinately!

      Call me a member of the tin hat bregade, but in an age of cloaning, I'm fucked if the government is gonna have indefinate access to my DNA, esp if I have never broken a (serious) law.

      Police are also given the authority to extract a DNA sample from you by force if nessisary (shoving a swab in your mouth to collect cheak cells).

  • I see this database exonerating the innocent more than convicting the guilty. There are thousands of guilty convictions here in the US that have been overturned since the development of DNA fingerprinting.

    Couldn't the database even be used to find organ donor matches?

    • Nope (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MutantEnemy ( 545783 )
      No. If DNA from the original crime scene is still available, then it should always be possible to check it against the DNA of an alleged suspect (or even a convicted suspect, in the case of an appeal). The database doesn't help in any way.

    • Couldn't the database even be used to find organ donor matches?

      Yes, maybe a DNA database could be used to find potential donors.

      I am willing to have my organs used, if I die of natural causes, and some of them are still useful. But I would prefer the potential receipients only learned that I was a match after I died. Why can't they do the organ typing after we die?

      Are't there car theives out there who you can you commission to rip off a particular model of car nowadays? You want a well maintained 67 Mustang convertible, like Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt [imdb.com]? They can get it for you.

      "That Ryan Stortz? The kid is a geek. He doesn't drink. Not only is his liver a perfect match for yours, but it is as clean as a baby's butt. Put five grand in my Swiss bank account, and he will have an "accident" before the week is out."

  • When the legislation allowing the taking of 'DNA Fingerprints' was first passed it clearly stated that the police must destroy all records and samples of fingerprints taken in relation to an investigation where the individual was not found guilty.

    i.e. If you didn't do it, they weren't allowed to keep your DNA.

    Well guess what! They kept every last damn sample, and they are now shouting about it as some great thing.

    The media puts forward an impression of DNA being foolproof - its his DNA, he's the bad guy! which massivly over states the likelyhood of a wrong conviction.

    People are regularly convicted and jailed based solely on DNA evidence, even when a weight of counter evidence is presented. This is pretty scary considering that it is more likely you will be mis-identified than win the lottery.

    These samples should be binned.

  • ...is fishing.

    Usually when you see DNA evidence presented in a case they'll run the samples collected at the scene, the suspect's samples, and a variety of samples from other folks. Then they pick the one that most closely matches (I.E. the suspect's). It's the same basic idea of the line-up only using genetics.

    However, this isn't how the database will be used. Some random crime occurs, they "fingerprint" every biological sample they can find at the scene, run it through the database, and go "okay, these people came up, go bring 'em in." Depending on the "fingerprinting" method they're using they're basically flirting with "Bible Code" style false positives. Why should you be harrassed just because some other guys DNA fragments into similar sized chunks as yours? Should the police have to do some, y'know, police work before they come knocking on your door?

    DNA evidence used as a pointer to guilt is basically in the same position testing the alloy composition of bullets was in. Everyone assumes it's a good indicator, but it's never been tested for accuracy. When someone finally got around to doing a large scale survey of bulley alloys guess what? It was shown to be absolutely worthless at either indicating or eliminating a given pair of bullets as coming from the same pouring lot.

    That is one difference, though. Genetic evidence is very effective at eliminating suspects provided you have good samples. But this databse is to be used to FIND suspects... the effacy of which has never been demonstrated.

  • funny, metro [metro.co.uk] newspaper (13/9/2000) somehow noted the prof's comments as being in favour of keeping everyones gfp's forever and ever amen.

    this already happens with minor criminal offenses such as 1-3 year cautioning. although in court a caution cannot be used (except in certain cases), they are still kept on file and as such are accessible by a range of law-enforcement bodies here.

    remember who points it out to you that "you are entitled to witness the destruction of the record upon the expiry of your caution" because you won't see it happen.

    it's been happening to us since the year dot though: french "criminal ear"; "i didn't like the look of him, sarge"; police videotaping at protest marches.

    my dad remembers that in the 60's there was a unofficial list of certain criminal records compiled under the guise of "resource files" - supposedly for the use of demographers and statisticans, but naturally accessible by MI5 MI6 et al.

    you can bet your ass this is still being added to.

    but most people however would be quite happy to give up certain freedoms so that those who are considered to be a threat to "them" (---not to mean the state---) could be tracked.

    the real worry is not therefore the records themselves but their use - genetic profiling.

    "it has come to our attention, sir, that you are 74% likely, at this age, to commit theft. anything you say may be used as evidence"..

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