MP WELCOMES EUROPEAN COURT RULING ON DNA RECORDS

6.07.16pm GMT Mon 8th Dec 2008

Solihull's MP, Lorely Burt has welcomed a European court ruling that holding the data of people who had not been convicted of a crime breached their personal rights.

The decision means that ministers have until March to respond to the judgment which currently affects 85,000 people whose DNA is retained on police files, but who have never been convicted of a criminal offence.

Mrs Burt backed a Bill introduced this summer aimed at removing the DNA records of individuals who have never been charged or have been acquitted of crimes.

"This breakthrough ruling will restore the right of individuals to control the use of their own DNA," said Mrs Burt.

"DNA belongs exclusively to every individual and should not be kept on record unless that person forfeits the right due to conviction for a criminal offence.

"Here in the West Midlands, there are 10,000 DNA samples on the Government's DNA database taken from children when they were under the age of sixteen. Many of these have never been charged or convicted of any crime.

"I have been contacted by angry parents in Solihull incensed that they cannot demand the destruction of their child's DNA records taken during police enquiries.

"The UK has by far the largest database in the world with 4,5million already registered and it is growing rapidly.

"The ruling in this case was one of the clearest made by the European Court, with all seventeen judges unanimous in their decision.

"This demolishes the Government's view that the way to fight crime is to blur the distinction between innocence and guilt. It is a measure of this Government's disregard for civil liberties that a European court has to fight to protect traditional British freedoms from a government obsessed with taking more and more personal data from its citizens."