All UK 'must be on DNA database'

9.13.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 7th Sep 2007

A senior judge has called for the whole population and every UK visitor to be added to the national DNA database. Lord Justice Sedley said the current England and Wales database, which holds DNA from crime suspects and scenes, was "indefensible" saying it would be fairer to include "everybody, guilty or innocent" on it.

Lord Justice Sedley's argument has some logic as some innocent people have their DNA on the database and it is virtually impossible to have it removed, so therefore everyone should. The counter-argument, and one to which I subscribe is why don't we removed the DNA of innocent people from the database (this is done in Scotland).

The current database contains information on 5.2% of the population and is heavily biased towards minority ethnic groups as they are disproportionately more likely to have their DNA taken than have committed a crime. Nearly 40% of black men and 13% of Asian men are included on the database.