DNA database - Unequal record

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• Editorial
• The Guardian,
• Wednesday July 30 2008
• Article history

Just after 9am on Monday September 10 1984, Sir Alec Jeffreys, a professor of genetics, triggered a revolution. He compared a DNA sample from one of his colleagues with that of the man's wider family and found a pattern. The discovery made DNA fingerprinting possible. The benefits are undeniable. No one would wish the invention undone.

But the process, and the British database it has generated, the most extensive in the world, has blurred the divide between private and public, innocent and guilty - a state intrusion into the genetic makeup of individuals that, until now, has been little monitored and could be easily abused.

The dilemmas are more ethical than scientific. It would be possible, if costly and illiberal, to record information from everyone legally resident in the UK. Sir Alec, who in an interview in the Engineer magazine this week rightly described a universal database as "wholly inappropriate", is not the only one to object to that idea - yesterday a citizen's jury set up by the Human Genetics Commission opposed it too. But if only some people are to be included, then it is all the more important that the rules are fair and people have a right of appeal.

The current situation, in which data from some 4.5 million people is held by chance, either because (innocent or guilty) they were arrested for a recordable offence or because they volunteered their DNA to help an investigation, is a bad compromise.

The risk is that the register ceases to be treated as an impartial forensic tool and becomes a list of the usual suspects - with the simple fact of inclusion implying possible guilt.

The recent DNA expansion programme, which sought to include all "active offenders", made the database more useful - but may also have exacerbated its bias. The fact that people who come into contact with the police are the most likely to be included has produced a distorted record, weighted towards certain sections of the population - especially young black men, up to three-quarters of whom may now be included, out of proportion to their actual involvement in crime.

The government admits that this is a problem. But

it has been reluctant to limit the sprawl on the grounds that the bigger the database, the more likely criminals are to be caught in its net.

But that is a recipe for a universal record by stealth. In April, the Home Office's advisory DNA Ethics Group urged a limit on the use of information provided by innocent volunteers. Yesterday the citizens' jury suggested people who are acquitted should have their names removed, among other ideas to prevent uncontrolled expansion.

Used badly, a database will harm the society it is supposed to protect.