[Closed] The DNA database

privacy. I do not want my data recorded. It is my data. Recording my data without my consent is invasion of privacy.

It is private until I let you have it. If you take it you have invaded my privacy

There are times when this is right for the state to do. However it must be proportionate and this is not.

If you are pro dna database or pro id card cos you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't be allowed curtains or window blinds either.

privacy. I do not want my data recorded. It is my data. Recording my data without my consent is invasion of privacy. It is private until I let you have it. If you take it you have invaded my privacy

That's a bit weak TJ. Just because. It's private cos it's notionally private (even though you happily drop it publicly everywhere you go).

The point remains if you appear in the database then there should be no real impact whatsoever on your life or your ability to conduct that life in privacy.

Things such as CCTV, GCHQ, ISP records, phone records, registration plates, bank account monitoring, etc have absolutely massive impacts on [i]real[/i] privacy (i.e. the ability of a law-abiding citizen to conduct their affairs in private).

I just don't consider a DNA Profile database to be remotely in the same league as any of them.

If you are pro dna database or pro id card cos you have nothing to hide...

I'm not. Read back a page and save your rhetoric.

The point remains if you appear in the database then there [b]should[/b] be no real impact whatsoever on your life or your ability to conduct that life in privacy.

Who cares. I want my data and my DNA profile to remin soley my property to do with as I want
Shed skin cells cannot be linked to me nor are they on a database nor have they been analysed into a dna profile

anyway - should not is not nearly a good enough safeguard. there are no safeguards on the DNA database - once you are on there you have no say over what happens to it

Your other stuff is irrelevant anyway - just 'cos the state invades your privacy in one way that does not make another invasion of privacy any more palatable

anyway - should not is not nearly a good enough safeguard. there are no safeguards on the DNA database - once you are on there you have no say over what happens to it

The same could be said for the DVLA, TV license, national insurance etc
But what safeguards would you like to see?

I assume they are already subject to the same rules of the Data Protection Act as anyone else?

Your other stuff is irrelevant anyway - just 'cos the state invades your privacy in one way that does not make another invasion of privacy any more palatable

Perhaps not, but it does place it in context.

A invasion of notional privacy that has no real effect on your day-to-day ability to be private; compared to mechanisms that are specifically put in place to ensure that very little of your life is private and that you are continually monitored just in case you do something bad.

Okay, you are arguing against DNA evidence being the sole evidence in a case.

Honestly no idea konabunny. I would [i]hope[/i] a UK prosecution would demand strong evidence to make it to trial.

My personal experience in such matters suggests it is hard to get a conviction, even when there is mountains of evidence.

No, I'm not. It might be perfectly reasonable to convict solely on the basis of DNA evidence. What is happening is that there are a lot of very confident assertions about what evidence law is in the various jurisdictions of the UK and I'm wondering if those assertions are accurate.

Those assertions are accurate, I showed you the links and my lawyer mate told me so. As this forum is not a court of law I think my representations are accurate enough for the sake of discussion. I've done some work to back up what I said, why don't you do some to prove me wrong instead of just opposing it all the time?

If a person is to be charged on the basis of a DNA match, the CPS require that there must be supporting non-DNA evidence available to be used in evidence. No-one is ever prosecuted solely on the basis of a DNA match; the DNA evidence is one piece of the information that the courts would require for a successful prosecution.....

From [url= http://www.wikicrimeline.co.uk/index.php?title=DNA_profiling ]wikicrime[/url]

Keep your hair on, old chap, no need to fire up the rant-o-tron quite yet. your answer came [i]after [/i]I asked my question.

I haven't disagreed with the assertions, I asked what they were substantiated by - if one of the recurrent self-reassuring claims by some of those in favour of a permanent DNA database is "I'm not worried by the potential for abuse of DNA records because they can't fit me up using them alone" (paraphrasing), then I was wondering what's the basis for the premise.

I didn't even mention that a throwaway comment by a non-lawyer in a town rag (when he is pushing the DNA database wagon), a bullet point in a PC dork magazine (which seems to be suggesting that the theoretical potential for apparently identical DNA results means that a conviction can't be sustained - but that's a far higher standard than the beyond [i]reasonable[/i] doubt standard required in criminal trials), an unsourced claim on a wiki page (which can't really decide whether it's CPS policy not to proceed with DNA evidence prosecutions only or whether it's actually a rule of evidence, and conspicuously fails to mention either case law or statute, probably PACE) and "my mate told me" aren't particularly convincing. I didn't even suggest that all these comfortable assertions seem to have been made without the asserters (?) actually being sure of what they're saying before they say it. So really no need to get so agitated about it all.

GrahamS - Member
Honestly no idea konabunny. I would hope a UK prosecution would demand strong evidence to make it to trial.

Well I said it with confidence because a) I am not a bullshitter and b) my mate the lawyer know more about this than you. So if you want to carry on down this road, the simple answer is BLOW ME YOU ****T.

Toys - after the stick you gave me for asserting without proof on another subject despite the fact it was an opinion then that really is a bit rich.

Sod off TJ.

[i]*sigh*[/i] ...and we managed to get so far without dissolving into name calling.

Wait, hold on - are you suggesting that DNA evidence is not strong evidence?

It is very strong evidence that your DNA is present.
That is about all that can be said for definite (and even that excludes any ****ups by the forensics blokes or the very slim possibility of it being an identical profile from someone else).

The strength of it as evidence in court that you were present and involved in the crime is entirely dependent on the context.

I would be dismayed to hear of a UK case where literally the only piece of evidence offered was DNA, even if the context it was found in was deeply incriminating.

konabunny: if it makes you happier the quote on wikicrime is correctly cited. It is from [url= http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070105/text/70105w0026.htm ]a Hansard transcript of a question to the Secretary of State regarding the DNA database[/url]:

Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in how many and what percentage of cases in which an arrest was made on the basis of DNA evidence was the DNA evidence found to be mistaken or false, since the establishment of the National DNA Database. [108546]

8 Jan 2007 : Column 134W

Joan Ryan: It is not necessarily straightforward to say that an arrest is made on the basis of DNA evidence, as police investigations will often involve looking at several different types of evidence including DNA, and an arrest may be made on the basis of the whole package of evidence. We are, however, aware of two cases in which arrests were made on the basis of mistaken DNA evidence since the establishment of the NDNAD in 1995.

..
If a person is to be charged on the basis of a DNA match, the CPS require that there must be supporting non-DNA evidence available to be used in evidence. No-one is ever prosecuted solely on the basis of a DNA match; the DNA evidence is one piece of the information that the courts would require for a successful prosecution.

There is nothing like a bit of name calling in the morning, sorry konabunny it was out of frustration and I hadn't had my coffee, so please accept my sincere apologies.

I knew it was right I just couldn't find the right source, so thanks GrahamS. (It also happens to be exactly the same wording as one fo my earlier sources.)

TJ you can try and criticise me for posting "opinion" (it wasn't an opinion anyway it was Ms Lawyers statement of fact, given that she has won awards from the Lord Chancellor and wins lots of cases I think she know her onions) but I also posted a few links and now we have a pretty comprehensive case for my assertion being true. After 3 days of arguing with you elsewhere you still failed to even provide a tenuous link never mind a decent one like Wikicrime or even Hansard. So you can take konabunnies place, on your knees, in front of me.

toys merely pointing out the hypocrisy

I was not criticising you for posting opinion. I was criticising you for double standards.

You gave me a load of stick for giving [i]my considered opinion[/i] that you disagreed with. I never pretended it was anything other than my considered opinion. Yo wanted absolute incontrovertible proof that my opinion was correct. This is of course impossible. I did not claim it as fact

Then you assert as fact something that

Well I said it with confidence because a) I am not a bullshitter and b) my mate the lawyer know more about this than you.

Hoist by your own petard I believe.

You might well be right - but if you demand absolute proof for something which is opinion then you need to adhere to the same standard yourself especially if you claim it as fact.

Just chill eh? accept a good natured teasing 😉

Damn you all. I was enjoying a rather interesting debate and exchange of ideas.

Now it's all collapsed into bickering and childish name calling.

You all smell!

Nahh TJ your wrong.
1) I didn't post anyone's opinion, I posted a fact told to me by someone who knows. If Stephen Hawking told me a fact about Physics and I reported it here would you say "Like that's just your opinion man" ???
2) I didn't ask you for incontrovertible proof of anything, I asked you for at least some evidence to which you couldn't supply a shred, all you could give me was your own twisted perception. In fact your reading of it that what I wanted incontrovertible proof just goes to show how twisted your perception is.

Speaking of hypocrisy, telling me to chill out when you are the one normally getting your knickers in twist is a bit rich isn't it?
If you don't think this

So you can take konabunnies place, on your knees, in front of me.