The DNA debate

Tom Willis

The answer is in what you can and do use them for.

We can not (yet) do much computing on photos. Do you really think your passport photo looks like you? And if an immigration officer thinks so, does a computer program? I think not.

With your DNA record I can match your DNA with millions of others and deduce, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, to whom you are related. I use computers for this, so I can do the same thing for many many thousands of other people at the same time, at little incremental cost.

The two are vastly different, in terms of what you can do with them. In addition, my picture is available to all, and we have societal ways of dealing with it (for example, we can ban people from taking photos of policemen, remember?) My DNA is potentially available to everyone, but the ability to make something of it is very new and not available to all by any means.

I am distressed at how little people know about the computing and information revolution. With computers, collating and abstracting information is so vastly much easier than with human beings. Ignorance of this is woeful in a politician, but widespread.

Paper records locked up in a drawer in a GP's surgery are very different from records held in one common place, and in a digital form. If they were not, we would not be trying to achieve the latter.

DNA is easy to record and match, photos are not. There is the difference, and it is why the government and security services want your DNA.

Alf Tupper

"A record of your DNA is simply the equivalent of a photo of the inside of one of your cells. Why get worried about that – but not about a picture of your face?"

Because a DNA database is much more able to find you, identify you and bring you to justice in the event you break the law.

The quicker we get this system up and running the better.

Simon Orr

If the information is never leaked or sold or used by a government that wishes you ill, then there is no difference. But if any of the above three situations were to occur then there are far more harmful things that can be done with your DNA than with a photo of your face.

G Adlam

You can choose not to have a passport. They won't let you choose to abstain from their DNA database. Where will they end up - tagging us 24/7 so they can verify our alibi if accused?

paracelsus

Whether it's rational or not, it is often about perception. We are so accustomed to photos being shared and used, more often than not in friendly situations, but a DNA profile, snapshot does not suggest the same usage.

When a person thinks of a DNA record they often think of CSI or a criminal case. It is the perception of usage that often bothers people, and the uniqueness of the data. Do we really want the government to maintain records of everything last thing? There has to be a limit sometime.

Austin Barry

The DNA database is not a good idea for we, the people. With the coming civil war, 3 or 5 years from now, it would be unfortunate if militant members of the patriotic liberation front ('PLF') were to be readily identifiable by the illegal Brownite Government.

country mouse

I can see no problem with storing DNA information, or for that matter biometric information about anyone who crosses our borders. That includes UK subjects as well as foreigners.
My concerns start with issuing ID card (be they with photos or DNA details) for use by UK subjects inside the UK. They are voluntary now, but for how long?
DNA passports - OK
DNA ID cards - totalitarian.

Liz Brown

My gut instinct tells me not to trust this sub prime Government with any details about me whatseover...........

Ray

Of course, Palmer kind of assumes that the state has the right to hold a photograph of every citizen too. Until the advent of cheap air travel (and the consequent need for holidaymakers to be issued with passports) this was not the case. All most people needed to prove who they were was a hand-written birth certificate.

Kevyn Bodman

DNA Database:

1)It's a huge change in the power relationship between the citizen and the state.To the advantage of the state.

2) It is a gatweay to private information about you that you don't yet know yourself so can't consent to disclosing.

3)The state can't be trusted to keep it secure.They might lose it or sell it.

4) It could be used to formulate and implement policies by the state to the advantage or detriment of citizens without citizens' knowledge or control.

5) Just as easily as detecting criminals it can be used to fit up innocent people by leaving their DNA at a crime scene.

6)Reciting the names of war dead dealt wuith under 'serious organised crime' legislation, anti-terrorist laws used against Icelandic banks,computer disks left on trains, MPs fiddling their expenses.
How much evidence do you need that those in authority cannot be trusted?

I'll come back tomorrow in the sure and certain knowledge that other commenters on my side will come up with more, and better, arguments.

John Goode

I don't mind being photographed when I'm fully dressed in a public place but I feel differently about being photographed naked while I'm having a bath. It's about privacy. Before the State takes my DNA I would certainly wish to know what they were doing with it, what safeguards were in place and could I myself check on my details to ensure what they had stored was correct and had not been compromised.

Publius

Because DNA is assumed to be incontrovertible evidence, sufficient to convict.

Furthermore, I for one do object to the state holding a photograph of my face on some electronic database. A photo on my passport, and on some hardcopy file at the Passport Office, was one thing. A digital photo stored electronically is another.

Alex

I dislike both

Henry Rogers

James,

If you call that (Palmer's column) tightly argued, I'm afraid I don't. Kevin's comment is entirely apt.

Hawkeye

The DNA database is the back-end of the ID card scheme.

That is the real danger.

Nick

1) DNA matching isn't 100% foolproof - yet "most" people assume it is.

2) Even more importantly the Police work on the assumption that it is 100% foolproof. Less onus is thus spent on more tradional policing or detective work.

3) Your DNA, and 100 other people's DNA, could be found at a crime scene if it was a public place. Do you really want to be under suspicion until you can prove an alibi ?

4) It's easy for a criminal to leave your DNA (hair, used napkin you've left on cafe table etc) at a crime scene to incriminate you or deflect attention from himself.

5) Violent criminals have been known to douse their victims with acid to destroy DNA left on their victims. Do you really want rapists thinking this is a clever way of avoiding detection ?

TrevorsDen

we do not or did not keep fingerprints of innocent people. I can prove my identity - i have a drivers livence.

Rthe database will be expanded and hold not our identity but information about us more and more information about us which will be used by all and sundry sold to all and sundry.

The arguments for an ID database are entirely bogus and you are a numpty for falling for it.

Steve.W

Who would have thought that some local councils would use aspects of the prevention of terrorism act to spy on people and their wheely bins? Well that did happen and no doubt somebody came up with a justification for this equal to the quality of the one used by Alasdair Palmer for a compulsory DNA database.

The touching belief held by Palmer that you can trust the authorities involved not to go for mission creep or simply screw up is crazy. Having DNA samples related to a crime is not a guarantee that things will work out right. The Stefan Kiszko case shows this, the police had DNA samples but did not bother with them, preferring a more prejudiced approach.

Taking Palmer's argument forward then we insist that for EVERY crime DNA is taken and INDEPENDENTLY checked? That's going to make motoring offences over-lengthy and ridiculously expensive. Remember the police managed to spend £5 million on the wrongful arrest of Damian Green.
Then weeks later 'forgot' to wear their shoulder flash numbers at the G20, hardly reliable.

The complex trust between the public and the police is now severely damaged and remember it is the former who pay for the latter, the police are public servants. Although it does appear as if the police simply regard the public as a nuisance well on their way to being criminal at least.

The creation of a DNA database linked to the present government's wish for an ID card/National Identity Register would not AUTOMATICALLY “convict the guilty and release the innocent,” as Palmer suggests.

The senior policeman responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of Kiszko was never charged,despite the evidence to show his malpractice.

Jack

It is a matter of choice.

I choose to have a passport. I choose to put myself into that system.

If the Police arrest me I do not have a choice to be fingerprinted, photographed and swabbed. It will happen. If I am innocent then the Police have no cause to keep the data.

Chuck Unsworth

"The nub of his argument is that there’s no the difference between the state having a photo of your face courtesy of your passport and one of your DNA."

Arrant nonsense. Does everyone in the UK have a passport? Is everyone in the UK obliged to have a passport?

What an astoundingly badly argued position.

The more information which is retained by the State the greater the room for misuse - deliberate or otherwise - and 'operator error'. Will the State indemnify all those whose details appear on such databases against all such eventualities? How does the State ensure that all those who have access are vetted, competent and controlled?

This is a grossly irresponsible position, driven entirely by the desire to control the population. The claptrap daily spouted forth by those advocating such monstrous invasions of our privacies often cites 'security' and 'crime reduction' as the prime virtues. There is almost no evidence that this is so - short of a few well-publicised cases. Do the costs and benefits really balance? I doubt it.

Mckenzie

It wont stop at DNA folks. Thankfully I think I will be dead before the implants kick in. There will always be that argument for the next step. remember them collars on Star Trek that choked the shit out of you? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, said the moron.

Keith

How appropriate that a government determined to centralise as much data on the population as possible should find itslef exposed to the very real problems of security of data. Every effort should be made to expose the frailty of centralise and computerised data when in the hands of those susceptable to bribes and/or politiical pressures. Perhaps the daily dirts have a role to play after all.

RMH

What happens when someone copies your dna and places it somewhere.

With a photo it does not mean anything........

Poorly argued.

RobertD

A face is a face. DNA can tell far more about you. With a high level of reliability it can match your biological relationships (and ethnic history) - which may not be what you beleve them to be. Increasingly it can be used to forecast your vulnerability to a wide range of future illnesses. Useful if you are a government that is a near monopoly supply of healthcare and are minded to do a bit of covert cost control. Often this is information that the owner of the DNA will not be aware, and certain can't give informed consent for its use.

Secondly, as have been mentioned above, because you leave traces of DNA in almost everything you touch it is relatively easy for someone with sinister intent to get hold of it and transfer it to a crime scene. The presence of your DNA may not be valid evidence that you were actually present, and certainly not of the time and circumstances in which you were present. DNA evidence on its own is not sufficient. It can easily be used to frame the innocent.

Finally who in their right mind is willing to allow any government, how ever competent (and the UK completely flunks every test of competence) to be the sole controller of information that they claim is your unique identifier. If they make a filing error then you cease to exist or are deemed to be someone else, with no recourse and no redress.

This is far more dangerous that Palmer's simplistic analysis suggests.

floatingvoter

There is no debate really to my mind. If there is anybody who thinks the database is a good idea, just look at the historical ability and tendency of numerous states at some point to be inclined to persecute some (even a small number) of its own citizens. The database will make that mercilessly effective.

These systems always start off being sold as for the publics safety but end up being anti-safety

Verity

I agree with, with conviction, with the posters above.

The fact that Alasdair Palmer suffers from multiple sclerosis would probably influence his thinking of the technology of taking pictures of the interiors of cells.

nick

When has this government ever procured or operated a computer system competently?
If the DVLA can sell vehicle registration data to private car parking firms, how long will it be before whichever quango runs the DNA database starts selling DNA records to insurance and pension companies?

Michael Greaves

Imagine for a moment to what use Heinrich Himmler and the SS might have put such a database.

Once you have so imagined, that ought to kill the idea immediately.

Charles Tharp

Re Michael Graves's point about Heinrich Himmler and possible uses of DNA. This argument has been used before. At the height of the Libyan terrorist scare in Washington in the '80s, some of the more 'Law&Order' types in the Administration brought forward a proposal to Mr. Reagan for a National Identity Card. One of the more libertarian chaps invited to the critical Oval Office meeting thought to obtain a mock-up of the card. "What do you think this looks like, Mr. President?" "Like something out of Nazi Germany," said Mr. Reagan instantly. End of subject.

Sometimes good instincts can trump poor logic.

(see memoirs of Martin Anderson, 1981-85)

john miller

Only if you believe the fallacy of the basic comparison.

Or if you are quite happy to be banged up on the basis that your face appears on a CCTV camera at the scene of a crime - and it doesn't matter whether it's before, during or after the event.

Nicholas

All the posts against this preposterous idea are good but I particularly appreciate those from Nick which address the fallacies of DNA.

The very fact that the DNA Database is promoted as the silver bullet for crime is the most dangerous thing about it. The way DNA is handled by police in Britain has already been criticised internationally as inherently flawed.

There is a horrible and growing presumption of "guilty if accused" in this country, encouraged by the Labour Nazis who are so obsessed with the concept of "victim" that they end up victimising the innocent. Justice is blindfolded and carries those scales for a reason, Labour idiots, but as usual you turn on their heads the principles and protocols that have safeguarded us and bring chaos to order.

Those who bleat "nothing to hide nothing to fear" change their tune rapidly when accidental circumstances drag them into crimes they have not committed. They also ignore the reality of the many cases of wrongful conviction, imprisonment and even execution.

You would think people would have more sense about this instead of reducing their capacity to reason to a tabloid headline. The most dangerous "useful idiots" are those currently yapping that it would be fairer to take DNA from everyone. So why weren't fingerprints taken from everyone then? You stupid, stupid people.

Chris

I've had a look at Alasdair Palmer's article. You could call it "provocative" if you think that "provocative" should be a synonym for offensive, but you'd have to stretch imagination an awful long way to call it "tightly argued." There's no argument in it at all. The "we've got your photo, so we might as well have everything else we fancy collecting" argument is just pathetic. The article is nothing but a rambling collection of the same old rubbish from another apologist for authoritarianism who doesn't understand what the relationship between the state and the individual should be. We've had a dozen years in this country of being governed by people who believe that the state is always right and that the individual is nothing but a criminal to be controlled by that state. We're sick to the back teeth of it.

John Levett

My principle objections have already been commented upon - the ratcheting up of crime as has already occurred with a rape victim being doused with acid and some evidence of crime scenes being seeded with another's DNA.

There is a further concern about the future uses of this information: the environmental lobby already seems to have all the political parties in its pocket and is making increasing noise about reducing the population by unspecified means. Eco-fascism and population databases have some disturbing antecedents and the prospect - at some future date - of an extremist government instituting a cull or licensed breeding program based upon a DNA register is not one to relish.

As somebody who would prefer to see more effort to make the police an efficient crime deterrent rather than an inefficient detective/crime number-issuing agency, I would discount Alasdair Palmer's analysis and refer you to Jenni Russell's argument in today's Times - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6256355.ece.

Besides, it seems to me that anything approved of by Jacqboot is, by definition, either an affront to civil liberties or just plain wrong... isn't it?

Nick Kaplan

From the premise that the state having our DNA is as bad as the state having our photo it does not follow that it is good for the state to have both. 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Moreover it is not inconsistent to recognise that they are as bad as each other and still advocate the state having our photos but not our DNA. One may accept that the state having some information on us is a necessary evil, but this is still consistent with thinking there are strict limits to the info the state can hold.

Further the 2 are not equivalent. When the state presumes it has the right to take from each of us a part of what is most fundamentally ours (our own bodies/ DNA) then government has overextended itself and has become tyrannical.

This entire article is built on faulty logic.

EyeSee

Ooh, let's think. But not for too long eh, because it is quite blindingly obvious. (I do find myself wondering exactly why you get space on Coffee House, Jimmy. All I see you post is 'you really must read this article by a leftie journalist' rather than any insight of your own). If you are innocently in someone's house whom you otherwise do not know, say to buy a clock from them or some such and the occupant is attacked in a burglary the next day, our 'first guess is right' police investigations these days will pick up your DNA. Neighbours may have seen a suspicious character who does not fit your description at all, but best to grab you, because they KNOW you were there, ipso facto you done it. It is not the information the database holds, it is the idiots using it that is the problem. Then there is 'innocent until proven guilty', trial by a jury of your peers, English Common Law and a few other, old fashioned concepts that we pillocks outside politics seem to think ought to hold sway. To approve a DNA database and see nothing wrong in it, all you need do is view it from the top down. The way a police state apparatchik would. I don't suppose you would be on Jacqui's list.

Rhoda Klapp

Do they have a searchable database of passport photos? Or is the data on the chip merely a check that the photo on your passport hasn't been switched? If the latter, there is no comparison with the state having your DNA. One of the defining vanities of recent legislation on 'terror' and all the rest is that the Labour government have not imagined how those measures might be used by any following government. Say the XXX party (insert bogeyman) took power, might they use the DNA to put us all into racial categories, or to identify genetic traits in order to implement eugenic policies? Think of all those times official forms ask you to identify your race/origin/ethnic group. How do they plan to use that data? It can only be to discriminate against someone. The Nazis used something similar to decide who was jewish enough to be sent for 'resettlement'.

It's time the people who work for us started to treat us as citizens, not serfs. Or meal tickets, come to that.