EU Makes UK Remove Innocent DNA

With the upcoming EU elections, people may well be asking what has the EU done for us. Recently the EU ruled that keeping innocent people’s DNA on a criminal database is illegal and forced the UK government to remove it after 12 years.

Of course the police love DNA because it makes their job easier. Find a piece of hair at a crime scene, get the person from the database. If they can’t explain how it got there, they are guilty. Skilled detectives are no longer needed. They defend the database by claiming that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

However, the erosion of liberty comes from side effects and abuses of the system. Even if you are innocent it can have consequences.

As understanding of genetics improves they will start to use profiling. So if you have a gene that make you prone to violence, the police could then start harassing you in the same way they stop and search ethnic minorities.

Secondly, as testing becomes cheaper it will be used in more minor crimes. Recently, councils used terrorist surveillance legislation to check if you picked up your dog poo. Similarly, if they find a cigarette butt on the ground they will DNA test it and send you a fine for littering. Even if the bin man dropped it while emptying the bin.

Finally, genetics reveals family relationships. So when the police find a body and use the DNA to identify it as your father, they will knock on your door to inform the kext of kin. However, the person is someone you have never met, your mother had an affair. Destroying the happy family.