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Baroness Kennedy welcomes DNA testing ban

30 August 2006

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Chair of the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) today (Wednesday) welcomed the ban on testing DNA without permission, which comes into force on Friday.  Under the Human Tissue Act it will be a criminal offence to take a sample from someone to test their DNA without their consent, except for medical purposes and lawful investigative purposes, for example a criminal investigation.

The new rule follows recommendations by the HGC in its report Inside Information.

Baroness Kennedy said today, “In our report we urged the Government to ensure that there were proper safeguards in place to protect people from any abuse in obtaining and storing genetic information.”

“Until now there has been nothing to stop an unscrupulous person, perhaps a journalist or a private investigator, from secretly taking an everyday object used by a public figure - like a coffee mug or a toothbrush - with the express purpose of having the person’s DNA analysed.  Similarly an employer could have secretly taken DNA samples to use for their purposes.”

“This sort of activity is a gross intrusion into a person’s privacy and we are very pleased that the Government has now taken the Human Genetic Commission’s advice and made it illegal to take and analyse DNA in this way, without the person’s consent.”

From September 1st 2006 it will be against the law to take someone’s DNA with the aim of analysing it at a later date without their permission. Any person doing this will be liable to up to three years in prison or a fine or both.

The Human Genetics Commission (HGC) has been pressing for this change since its first report “Inside Information”, published in 2002. The Government agreed with this recommendation in its White Paper on Genetics in 2003 and included a new offence of non-consensual DNA testing in the Human Tissue Act (2004), which comes into force on 1st September 2006.

Contact: Pat Wilson on 07990 55 00 26 for more information or interviews with Baroness Kennedy.

Notes
1. Clause 45 of the Human Tissue Act relates to the non-consensual analysis of DNA and makes it an offence to have bodily material with the intention to analyse human DNA in the material without qualifying consent unless it is for an excepted purpose.  This clause comes into effect on 1st September 2006.

2. The use of the results of an analysis of DNA for any of the following purposes is use for an excepted purpose:
 (a) the medical diagnosis or treatment of the person whose body manufactured the DNA;
 (b) purposes of functions of a coroner;
 (c) purposes of functions of a procurator fiscal in connection with the investigation of deaths;
 (d) the prevention or detection of crime;
 (e) the conduct of a prosecution;
 (f) purposes of national security;
 (g) implementing an order or direction of a court or tribunal, including one outside the United Kingdom.

3. In “Inside Information”, the HGC concluded that there should be systems in place that promoted public trust about the ways that clinicians, researchers and ultimately the State handled personal genetic information. They examined existing safeguards and looked at possible ways in which genetic information might be wrongfully used.  They identified possible malicious or deceitful ways in which personal genetic information might be obtained or used, for example:

• if a journalist secretly took an everyday object used by a public figure and having analysed the DNA sample obtained from it, published their genetic information;
• if someone found out the names of people who had given samples for a research study by breaking the code protecting their identity and then passed those details on to an insurance company or a research organisation, and
• if a suspicious family member secretly tested a child to see if the child was really related to another family member or not.

4. The HGC considered these kinds of activities to be gross intrusions into another’s privacy and concluded that there was insufficient legal protection to prevent them from happening. 

5. A copy of Inside Information can be found at (http://www.hgc.gov.uk/Client/document.asp?DocId=19&CAtegoryId=8)


 

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