If we have nothing to hide why would our civil liberties be violated by a full register of DNA data.?

Question

Two high profile cases this week give a strong arguement in favour of a full register. Surely rape would almost cease to exist if you knew you were 99% likely to be caught.

Answer 1

yea!! microchip all humans!! monitor them in a central database so they wont be bad!! NWO!! storm troopers!!

Answer 2

The problem isn't the database!  It is the people, systems and establishment that operate and control it.  UK police are far too corrupt, the CPS likewise and magistrates are beyond redemption.  If you trust implicitly those holding this information, go for it.  Who knows what it will be like in the future, especially the way government is taking control over everything now!  Do not complain when, in X number of years, the local bent copper wants to shag your ex and, as a way of earning her favour and serving her vengeance, uses the database to set you up.  Yes, this is happening in the UK today.  A national database makes everyone a suspect until proven innocent.  DNA is not that accurate either - its presence proves nothing more than its presence!!  Also, the lack of accuracy means that, in the UK, there is at least one other person with a DNA so close to yours as to be classed as the same.  With most criminals being convicted on a probability of over 95%, there are a heck of a lot of people that the police would need to arrest and interview, every time they interrogate the database!  Are you prepared to pay the price of being arrested every time someone whos DNA is more than 95% similar to yours commits an offence.  Are you so sure that you deserve to be convicted for their offence because the police are target driven and don't give a toss who they s***w for a conviction.  A DNA  database would essentially be another tool to help police convict the nation's innocence, just to hit targets - even before an offence has been committed.

Answer 3

Totally.

This sort of thing is bad for at least three reasons:

1.  Some people might be involved in things which are perfectly legal, but which some (maybe powerful) others might object to.  A DNA database could be misused to persecute them.

For example, what if the prime minister discovered his wife was having an affair?  Would you really trust him not to use the database to find out who the other man was?

2.  While you might trust the current government, you might not trust the one in power a few years down the line.  They would then be able to put the database to more sinister uses for which it wasn't originally intended.

It is against our principles to let any government have too much power.  We realised that way back in 1215 with the Magna Carta.

3.  No database is 100% secure.  This would be very dangerous data to fall into the wrong hands.

While you're right that the media have highlighted a case where such a database would have caught a killer a lot sooner, this is an individual case & I'm not convinced that a DNA database would be a massive improvement.  My understanding is that all offenders, when caught, are put on the current DNA database (which now holds data on 4 million people) - how many serious offences are committed by repeat offenders, who are already on the database?  I suspect it's the majority.

Answer 4

Exactly   Only people with something to hide would need to be worried.   Lead a blameless life and do not offend  and you have  absolutely nothing to worry about.

Answer 5

How would they "make" everyone give a DNA sample anyways.

And it wouldn't stop all crime, yes, rape and touchy feely crimes would go down which is good but crimes like the D.C. sniper... bullets that travel half a mile have no DNA unless you l**k them first.

Answer 6

The recent high profile losses of data by the Child Support Agency  and other government kept data losses demonstrates that our data isn't safe in Government hands. What if your DNA was planted at the scene of a crime and you ended up convicted of something you were innocent of? It also 'smacks' of '1984' to me. Sorry, I really don't feel comfortable about this.  To collect and securely store everyone's DNA is also a massive waste of scarce resources. It is fair enough that DNA samples are collected from criminals (the modern version of finger-printing) but proper resources/security precautions must be put in place to keep this data secure.

Answer 7

There is nobody in this country who hasn't got something to hide.

You can imagine good old joe public being arrested for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time but in all innocence. The man or woman having the all too often illicite affair in a hotel bedroom where someone gets bumped off later. Their DNA shows up and they get the knock on the door. Explain that away to your wife or husband when the DNA was in London and you were supposed to be in Edinburgh.

How will this system work with those arriving in this country from abroad on a visit or holiday????

On the privacy popint - you let the b@stards con you again with the nothing to hide nothing to fear line the next will be an implant at birth - "nothing to hide nothing to fear"

Answer 8

they will never get mine or my families

Answer 9

Look at it the right way and see what we mean. Why stop at DNA, why not have a digital private parts catalogue too so people can identify..........................

Answer 10

why stop there, if you have nothing to hide why not just allow the police at any time the right to come into your home and search it.

if you have nothing to hide why not allow full access to your bank account and your medical notes.

where will all this end, it is getting more and more like a police state

Answer 11

What if insurance companies used it to deny coverage?  What if employers used it to screen employees so they would never get someone with a trait towards some terminal illness?

Relative to your rape question, rapists have been known to use condoms.

I really don't have a problem with a  DNA data bank, but I can understand why some people would - even though they aren't guilty of anything.  The government is notoriously bad at safeguarding personal data.

Answer 12

Yeah..... sorry, I just dont feel comfortable about someone knowing when I take a c**p and wipe my ***. Maybe thats just me...

Answer 13

Ah, this old chestnut.  Luckily, the bill has just been defeated and we won't be seeing this database.  Whoo-hoo!

The fact is that I have nothing to hide.  The idea of the British "Justice" (I know, I know, laugh at the idea of British Justice) system is innocent until proven guilty.

Why should all my information be availble to be lost by some incompetent "government" minister or even worse, sold to the highest bidder?!

Do you really want to get junk mail that says "we've seen your DNA, you're high risk for colonic cancer, we have the drug that could save you!"???  No, of course you wouldn't.

My body, my DNA, my life.  One day very soon, this "government" is going to find out that the British public will only take so much and when that days comes, there is going to be.....  trouble.

Answer 14

This is a civil liberties issue, and I can see both sides. Yes, I want the police to have the tools to solve crime, and no, I don't want the state to have that information on me.

A DNA database would not end rape. In most rape cases there is usually no dispute over whether s*x took place, and that's all DNA evidence can help with. Most rape cases are arguing over whether s*x took place with consent, and DNA evidence would not help establish consent at all.

Answer 15

Liberties are not violated by what is found in an invasion but instead by the invasion itself. Innocent people have an inviolable sense of self-ness and privacy just as would guilty people, and, if they are enlightened, even more so. If you want to be a stooge or tool of the government, go to Cuba; in the US, privacy and liberty are the ultimate good.

Answer 16

I agree with it but you are walking a slippery slope with the cruddy ACLU.

I have nothing to hide and I'd like the govt. to have my DNA so that I don't mistakenly end up on Death row like hundreds of other people.

It's a good idea but we won't see it happen.

Answer 17

It's not a question of 'nothing to hide', it's a question of who would do what with our information.  It could be the first step towards tighter and tighter government control, if we had that database it would no longer be innocent til proven guilty but assume everyone's guilty of something and work backwards.  With the rape issue, I read a horrific story where a gang of men poured chemicals on a woman to get rid of DNA evidence, the REAL criminals would just find ways to sidestep the database anyway

Answer 18

DNA is not as unique as we are are lead to believe in television programmes such as CSI.  James Waston has publish a book called 'DNA: The secret of life', which I have a copy of.  In the book he tables the varieties of DNA for different spieces, of which Human DNA has approximately 3000 million.  Because of this 3000, million figure many are blinded into believing that each persons DNA is unique, forgetting that there are 6000 million people living in the world - double the number of DNA possiblities.  The chances of any one persons DNA be the same as another is as good as 100%.  The chances of two people living in the same area as one another is quite high, why?  Because very few people move far away from the place where they were born.  Some people even have relatives such as grandparents, aunts and uncles and so on living in or around the same area.  Becuase people have a tendency to live in the same area where they were born there is a possiblity that people will breed with another who steams from the same family tree where the root of the tree is say 10 generations back.  As of yet no-one knows whether or not there is such a thing as a dominant DNA strand or put another way. Is the DNA of a child 50% of the mother's and 50% of the father's?

Another very real and know problem with DNA is the fact that we are dropping it every-where we go, simply because we breathe in and out.  When we talk to people, be it our friends, work colleagues or the person standing next to us in the queue we are breathing our DNA all over them due to vapourize saliva in the breath.  Rather like finger prints DNA can me found on a person for quite innocent reasons and is no real proof of guilt.

In the two cases mention DNA was not the only reason for a conviction, there was other evidence to back it up.  DNA in these two cases pointed the police in the right direction.  There is no guarantee DNA will point the police in the right direction all the time.

If you are ever on a jury and only evidence against the person in the dock is DNA them find them not guilty, DNA on it's own is no evidence at all.

Mind you if Gorden Brown and co. were willing to register their DNA then I would be willing to register mine, but they are not so nor am I.

Answer 19

There is too much of a possibility that this information could be hacked into and used in crimes or identity fraud.  Until this type of register can be made foolproof then it is not a good idea.

Answer 20

Because it will make the defence of criminals more difficult.

Answer 21

i would simply ask these people would you like a camera in your bedroom or lavatory like in the novel 1984?

the answer is obviously no, since we may well be doing something private or embarrassing, but not neccessarily illegal.

the people who commit serious crimes rarely go from being a model citizen to serial killer overnight. they usually seem to commit some lesser crimes first  so i would approve of dna testing suspects.  

in addition to the highly publicised data screwups recently, i can add from personal experience that both your local council and the dvla think that they are immune to the data protection act.  no government agency can be trusted with keeping the data confidential.

Answer 22

because DNA tells people a lot more about you than just if you 'did it or not'... it'll also show your ethnic origins, diseases and conditions you're susceptible to etc etc etc in a nutshell...information you may not won't to know or share. The next step would be people like insurance companies and employers demanding a right to see it.... we just shouldn't go there until someones figured out how to protect the information. It's all very well saying now...it'll only be used for criminal related stuff... but we all know where these things end up going. personally I don't want to be bar-coded.

Answer 23

I'm allergic to cucumbers and cabbage.  I can see some employers deciding that this disqualifies me from working for them.  Frankly I would rather see a few criminals get away with an occasional crime, since they will ultimately be caught anyway, than let the government know ANYTHING about me. I resent the fact that I have a government issued birth ceritificate--my father's family has been here since 1620, and my mother's since 1818, and NO one else before me had a birst certificate.  The govt demands to keep all sorts of stupid secrets but wants to know my blood type, haplogroup, phone number, address, age, educational level?  s***w'em!!!

Answer 24

You question assumes the authorities never get it wrong and innocents are never jailed. If you consider that even in medical tests, the people in testing labs make mistakes and diseases are missed or falsely identified, it's entirely possible that DNA tests will result in errors - with the wrong people identified as criminals, and worse, the real criminals escaping justice. Until DNA testing is 100% foolproof - an unlikely event given human nature - it seems a full register will not automatically deliver what  you're looking for.