Over the last couple of years there has been a significant increase in the number of people who have their DNA stored in the national DNA database (NDNAD).

Most recent figures suggest that out of the 3-million or more entries, nearly a third of the entries are from people who have never been convicted, charged or even cautioned for any crime.

Setting aside the fact that this is a pretty major infringement of the civil liberties of a fairly large chunk of the population, the additional entries also devalue the DNA database as an aid to crime detection. A database that has over a million superfluous entries is slower to search, is more cumbersome and likely to produce a far higher degree of record mismatches.

At the same time, it emerged yesterday that the details of over 27000 serious criminal offenses committed by UK citizens overseas have been left lying in box files for months – or in some cases years – instead of being entered into the Police National Computer (PNC).

The ramifications are of course huge; with no record of overseas convictions on the PNC, it is impossible to accurately vet candidates against the sex offenders register and any subsequent convictions in the UK would be likely to result in shorter sentences if the justice system is unaware of similar offenses committed by the accused outside the UK.

So despite all the usual government spin and rhetoric about how these databases are all about our protection and are there to prevent crime and terrorism blah blah blah, it certainly seems clear (especially in light of this latest Home Office gaff) that Government is far less concerned with tackling crime than it is in controlling the legitimate, law-abiding population.

And this is the same crowd that they want YOU to trust with the national identity card scheme…

Start worrying!

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