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Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear?

This report, published on 24 November 2009, follows the 2008 Citizens' Inquiry and the subsequent public consultation on the National DNA Database.  

The main argument of the report can be summarised as follows: 

  1. whether profiles of unconvicted people should be recorded on the NDNAD is a fundamental question affecting the relationship between the individual, society and the state, and decisions about this should therefore be informed by public debate and taken by Parliament; 
  2. the de facto purpose of the database has shifted over time and should now be set out and constrained in primary legislation; 
  3. robust evidence of the ‘forensic utility’ of the database should be produced to justify the resource cost and interference with individual privacy it represents;
  4. this is particularly relevant to the question of which (assuming any) unconvicted people may have their profiles retained on the NDNAD;
  5. more open and independent governance arrangements should be put in place to increase public confidence and co-operation, in particular: a wholly independent oversight board; regular publication of data reviews; independent appeals review board for applications to have subject profiles removed; enhanced role for the Ethics Group; etc.

The report does not recommend a database of a particular size or scope (although it rules out, at present, a population-wide database).  In the HGC’s view, the scope would depend on the acceptability of retaining profiles from unconvicted people (which should be decided explicitly by Parliament) and the robustly evaluated ‘forensic utility’ of doing so.

Erratum: the figure of 'around 70,000' profiles added to the NDNAD in 2005-06 and 2006-07, quoted in paragraph 5.5 of the report, should read 'around 700,000'.  The comparable figures for 2007-08 and 2008-09 are now available.  They are 591,028 and 580,174, respectively (see the NDNAD Annual Report 2007-2009). 

Author:
HGC
Published:
HGC
Type:
HGC Reports 
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