Key Quotes
Andy Burnham MP (Home Office Minister)
“The database simply reflects operational policing practice in Britain”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2004160,00.html
Damian Green MP (Conservative Home Affairs spokesman)
"We do have concerns about the Government including on the database the DNA and fingerprints of completely innocent people. More than 100,000 law-abiding citizens have been added to the database since last year even though they have not been charged with a crime."
"We need a proper public debate about whether we should be building up such a huge database. If the Government wants a database which has the details of everyone, not just criminals, they should be honest about it and not construct it by stealth."
Lynne Featherstone MP (Liberal Democrat)
"This is an intolerable infringement of liberty and personal privacy.
"There is no purpose or justification for keeping the DNA record of anyone who is not charged with an offence.
"We cannot be absolutely certain that there will be no misuse of the DNA database. There are no real safeguards to control it."
"With the growing concern about racial profiling and disproportionality in criminal investigations, the need to keep innocent people on the DNA database is questionable."
From a press release dated 4th January 2006.
Shami Chakrabati, director of “Liberty”
"No one should confuse the use of well targeted DNA information with a monster DNA database containing the details of every man, woman and child in the UK."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=373249&in_page_id=1770
Barry Hugill, spokesman for Liberty
"We find the idea of a DNA database covering a (British) population of 60 million a frightening scenario."
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200309%5CFOR20030909e.html
Sir Alec Jeffreys, DNA profiling pioneer
“We are facing a potentially serious threat to civil liberties,” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2004160,00.html
"Where there is a crime scene sample but no suspect, we can now try to learn something of the suspect from that DNA. There are tests coming along for hair colour, eye colour; one could imagine skin colour ... ethnic status or origin of an individual. Does the system become open to discriminatory abuse?"
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD004674.html
Dr Robin Williams, Senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Durham, who is conducting the first in-depth study of the National DNA Database
“What we are doing now would not be possible in societies in which citizens have less trust in state authorities. We need to consider the possibility that the NDNAD becomes a comprehensive genetic database not only of offenders, but increasingly of suspects - and perhaps eventually of citizens.
"The fact of state ownership of a person's unique biological marker clearly functions as a way of extending surveillance over his or her subsequent activities. The NDNAD objectifies a new kind of identity, that of 'criminal suspect'. Once your genetic presence is on the database, this constitutes an in-eradicable part of your identity."
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD004674.html
Helen Sabonjian, a teacher from Harrow, west London.
Her teenage son, Mark, was among a group who witnessed a robbery in December 2004 but was arrested on suspicion of the crime, despite being innocent.
“It was a very horrific ordeal . . . but the fact that his details were retained for ever was the icing on the cake,”
“It’s not right. It should not happen. Why should my son be on the database for doing nothing?”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2004160,00.html
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