Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 87 total)
  • I've had my fingerprints and DNA sample taken. Should I be worried ?
  • There’s been a major crime near where I live.
    As a local resident who frequently passes the scene, I’ve been interviewed.
    I gave the police some information on a couple of unusual things I’ve seen recently and, as a result, gave a written statement.
    Afterwards, they asked permission to take my fingerprints and DNA sample, so I agreed.

    I can remember when the taking of fingerprints and DNA from witnesses, not just suspects, was introduced, there was a lot of opposition.
    So what’s the problem ?
    I do get that instinctive objection to an intrusion of my privacy feeling, but in reality, does it matter ?

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    it only matters if you’ve done somethign wrong and/or your dna may be at the crime scene.

    they can’t keep it ‘on record’ any more so it’ll be destroyed once the current investigation is concluded.

    I personally wouldn;t worry – it’s not that different from having your photo taken and shown to witnesses really, is it?

    jon1973
    Free Member

    Not really sure what the problem is in reality apart from the agrument that it somehow infringes your right to anonimity/privacy. If you’ve done noting you’ll be fine. Noit sure whether they can keep them on record now, once they’ve eliminated you from their enquiries.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    ohnohesback
    Free Member

    Yes. you are a possible witness not a possible suspect. Now that They have you DNA and dabs They can use them for whatever purpose They choose to…

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    Only if you did it! 😉

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    Have you asked what they will do with the fingerprints and DNA sample once you have been eliminated from their enquiries?

    jon1973
    Free Member

    Only if you did it!

    …or have done sommit else in the past which they can now link to you. 😆

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    The risk is you will be misidentified at a future crime and accused because they have your data on file. I personally wouldn’t. read up on the Shirley McKie case

    bigjim
    Full Member

    Now they have your dna they can pin anything they want on you, and you have no chance of getting out of it!

    I think if I was a suspect, my interview would have been a bit more dramatic than two guys with clip boards who had to phone me to ask for direction to my house.

    They can use them for whatever purpose They choose to…

    This is what I mean, the vague warnings and sinister capitalisation of “They”.
    What might these purposes be ?

    joao3v16
    Free Member

    Now they have your dna they can make an army of clones

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    misidentified at a future crime and accused because they have your data on file

    TJ they can’t store data ‘on file’ any more.

    ohnohesback
    Free Member

    The uses that a database can be used for are limited only by the imagination and moral scruples (or lack of them) of the controllers of the database.

    The use to which personal and biometric data could be used for was at the core of the opposition to the scrapped ID card scheme. Mistakes not only can be made with databases, they are inevitable.

    scuzz
    Free Member

    They want to frame you after your Police-created clone murders a politician of the Police’s choosing.

    chewkw
    Free Member

    You DNA will be planted on someone else …

    jon1973
    Free Member

    Now they have your dna they can pin anything they want on you, and you have no chance of getting out of it!

    Yes, the police sit around all day thinking, “that bloke that helped us out the other day looked quite happy, let’s take the smile off his face and pin a murder on him, that’ll pass the time.”

    16stonepig
    Free Member

    it’ll be destroyed once the current investigation is concluded

    Yes, that’s certainly the theory.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    are you sure wwaswas – I thought they had done a load of weaselling around that

    I didn’t really follow the controversy at the time, but wasn’t one of the objections that the data was, or could be, stored indefinitely, not just until the relevant crime was solved ?

    radtothepowerofsik
    Free Member

    How long can they keep it for if you’ve been arrested?

    Lifer
    Free Member

    The ‘only matters if you’ve got something to hide’ argument is rubbish. Where do you draw the line?

    ransos
    Free Member

    To not be worried about this, you’d have to be convinced that the police (and administrators of the database) are benign and competent.

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    Where do you draw the line

    where do you think it shoudl be drawn?

    hora
    Free Member

    Years ago I was at a friends house watching TV when two officers knocked, came in whilst making a murder enquiry. 3 miles away someone had been murdered.

    They asked for fingerprint/DNA and I didn’t go along. I had absolutely no intention of doing this as at the time I remember a Police van slowly circling (with talk at the time of this happening regularly) and someone was snatched and into the back of the van and given a right kicking (football matchday)…and in the youth in our town we viewed the Police as not very nice types etc.

    A couple of months later they caught the murderer. A neighbour to the deceased.

    Would I do the same now to help the Police rule a section of population out of an enquiry?

    I honestly don’t know. The reason being is there are a section of the Police that I still don’t trust to use their brains. There are some great officers doing a great job but I do think there are still some grunts, thicko’s and corrupt officers.

    Drac
    Full Member

    I’ve seen the 6th day they’ll clone you like mentioned above, oh and yes you’ll be a suspect in many a crime too Wiki says so.

    binners
    Full Member

    TJ they can’t store data ‘on file’ any more.

    Hang on a minute. When the EU Human Rights lot ordered that innocent peoples DNA couldn’t be kept on record, didn’t the police just turn around and say “**** off, we’re keeping them anyway! So there!”?

    Not exactly renowned as the most accurate record keepers in the world either, are they?

    I’m liking this idea of a cloned army of vegan trailquesters on 29er. 😀

    s
    Free Member

    wwaswas – Member

    Where do you draw the line

    where do you think it shoudl be drawn?

    Start with everyone who objects, they should be put on the national database 😉

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    I may be mistaken, Wikipedia has a lot to say…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_National_DNA_Database

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    wwaswas – thats why I wouldn’t do it. A fragment of your dna is found at a murder scene years later that has got there innocently – you will be a suspect.

    itstig
    Full Member

    So they can check the two anonymous letters they have received for dna and find the letter writer if they don’t voluntarily come forward? Probably no need to be concerned,I’d still resent giving mine as well.

    Lifer
    Free Member

    wwaswas – Member
    “Where do you draw the line”

    where do you think it shoudl be drawn?

    The Police shouldn’t require any of your details unless you’re a suspect in a case – excepting contact info for witnesses.

    hora
    Free Member

    I can understand the arguments. If I was the investigating team, anyone refusing to give a sample may be refusing as they know they could be matched to the scene.

    phil.w
    Free Member

    it only matters if you’ve done somethign wrong and/or your dna may be at the crime scene.

    Unfortunately DNA evidence is not as unique as commonly believed. The ‘99.9% unique’ figure often used is not applicable to the markers used to identify people.

    The chances of a random DNA sample being similar enough to your’s to be counted as coming from you are worryingly high when considering the amount of faith put in DNA evidence for convictions.

    This study is quite well documented…

    State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona’s DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.

    The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

    The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.

    In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches — each seeming to defy impossible odds.

    Lifer
    Free Member

    hora – Member
    I can understand the arguments. If I was the investigating team, anyone refusing to give a sample may be refusing as they know they could be matched to the scene.

    So unless you submit entirely to investigation based on…? you’re a suspect?

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    As said above, perhaps refusal to co-operate will make police investigate you more closely and, even if you have nothing that needed hiding, divert resources from other, more fruitful, areas?

    aracer
    Free Member

    TJ +1

    it’s not that different from having your photo taken and shown to witnesses really, is it?

    Yes it is. As TJ says, they find your DNA at a murder scene – which got there totally inoccently, but you can’t produce a good explanation for it – then you’re in big trouble. The old innocent until proven guilty bit tends to get a bit put aside in such cases, DNA evidence is such a powerful thing and it appears to come down to you proving why your DNA was there rather than them proving it didn’t get there a different way. I’m largely a supporter of the police, but I wouldn’t put it past certain officers conveniently finding extra evidence if they were convinced enough of your guilt by (innocent) DNA evidence when they didn’t have enough other.

    It all really comes down to what they do with your sample after this case is closed – or even what uses it can be put to whilst the case is still open (it’s all very well getting destroyed after the case is closed – what if they never catch who did it?) Do we have a definitive answer on that?

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    A fragment of your dna is found at a murder scene years later

    Really? These futuristic robo-coppers will have to have bloody good laser-enhanced eyesight then!!

    aracer
    Free Member

    As said above, perhaps refusal to co-operate will make police investigate you more closely and, even if you have nothing that needed hiding, divert resources from other, more fruitful, areas?

    That’s their problem, not mine. They have no power to charge you unless they find something linking you – which if you didn’t do it, and have no connection to the people involved they presumably won’t. Why exactly do they need to “eliminate” you if you’re not a suspect?

    ski
    Free Member

    Do you think it would bring down crime rates if everyone was on the database?

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 87 total)

The topic ‘I've had my fingerprints and DNA sample taken. Should I be worried ?’ is closed to new replies.