BURT WELCOMES EUROPEAN COURT RULING ON DNA RECORDS (East Staffordshire Liberal Democrats)

East Staffordshire Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

BURT WELCOMES EUROPEAN COURT RULING ON DNA RECORDS

December 9, 2008 4:47 PM
Originally published by West Midlands Liberal Democrats

Local Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate, Richard Burt has welcomed a European court ruling that holding the data of people who have not been convicted of a crime breaches their personal rights.

The decision means that ministers have until March to respond to the judgment which currently affects 85,000 people whose DNA is retained on police files, but who have never been convicted of a criminal offence.

Mr Burt backed a call this summer aimed at removing the DNA records of individuals who have never been charged or have been acquitted of crimes.

"This breakthrough ruling will restore the right of individuals to control the use of their own DNA," said Mr Burt.

"DNA belongs exclusively to every individual and should not be kept on record unless that person forfeits the right due to conviction for a criminal offence.

"Here in the West Midlands, there are 10,000 DNA samples on the Government's DNA database taken from children when they were under the age of sixteen. Many of these have never been charged or convicted of any crime.

"The UK has by far the largest database in the world with 4,5million already registered and it is growing rapidly.

"The ruling in this case was one of the clearest made by the European Court, with all seventeen judges unanimous in their decision.

"This demolishes the Government's view that the way to fight crime is to blur the distinction between innocence and guilt. It is a measure of this Government's disregard for civil liberties that a European court has to fight to protect traditional British freedoms from a government obsessed with taking more and more personal data from its citizens."