LONDON (AFP) — The government should change the law to oblige police to remove the DNA samples of innocent people from the police national DNA database, a group of experts said Tuesday.
At present, police can store permanently the DNA samples of people who have been arrested even if they are later found to be innocent.
But in a report Tuesday, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics urged that only the DNA from convicted criminals should be archived on the National DNA Database.
Nuffield Council chairman Professor Bob Hepple said: "Innocent people are concerned about how their DNA might be used in future if it is kept on the National DNA Database without their consent."
Hepple conceded that the DNA Database is a useful crime-solving tool but warned that the financial cost and loss of privacy outweighed any potential benefits of recording the entire population. The database currently holds samples on more than three million people.
Storing DNA samples on the entire UK population on the database would cost an estimated 700 million pounds with each sample costing 4.50 pounds to store for the first five years.
"The intrusion of privacy incurred would therefore be disproportionate to any possible benefits to society.
"For these reasons, the Nuffield Council is against the establishment of a population-wide forensic DNA database at the current time," Hepple said.
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