Do Not Trust UK Police With DNA Database
Posted on September 18, 2007
Filed Under Politics, News | Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago, Lord Justice Sedley, one of England’s most experienced appeal court judges, suggested that everyone who lives in Britain or who visits Britain should have their DNA records entered onto a national database. The argument was that if everyone was on it, it would be more fair and it would help with catching criminals and keeping us all secure.
In something of a turnabout, an ethics committee has said that even the current levels of police powers to hold DNA records should be curtailed and no extra permissions should be granted.
The Guardian has this:
The government must prevent police from storing the profiles of innocent people on the national DNA database, an influential group of experts has said. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics also recommended that ministers drop plans to extend police powers that would see DNA samples being taken from people suspected of minor offences such as littering or speeding.
“Innocent people are concerned about how their DNA might be used in future if it is kept on the national DNA database without their consent,” said Sir Bob Hepple QC, chair of the council, which convened a group of lawyers, ethicists, geneticists and sociologists a year ago to study the ethical issues behind the use of biological information in police investigations.
[…]
Under present laws, police can take DNA samples from anyone who has been arrested for recordable offences without asking permission. The profiles are permanently stored on the database, even if the person is later acquitted of all charges
“We’re recommending that the police should only be permitted to keep the DNA of people who are convicted of a recordable offence,” said Carole McCartney, director of the centre for criminal justice studies at the University of Leeds and one of the authors of the report, published today. She said exceptions could be made for people charged with violent or sexual offences.
[…]
The report also advised against a DNA database containing records of everyone, which some say would remove issues of discrimination which have seen some ethnic minorities over-represented. “This would be hugely expensive and would have only a small impact on public safety,” it said.
So, you might wonder, how does this line of thought on ethics square with the fact that we are all going to have similar levels of information held about us, not just by the police, but by local traffic wardens and roadsweepers and supermarket trolley collectors when we all have to carry our shiny new compulsory UK ID cards?
You can also go to the debate section where there is further opportunity to get involved in discussions or start new debates.
Go to the campaign section to start or join a campaign.
Change The World
Posted on September 17, 2007
Filed Under Images, Web Publishing, Non Sequitur, Politics, News | Leave a Comment
When did you give up on your teenage dreams of changing the world?
When did you give up your dreams?
When did you give up?
Don’t give up.
Do something.
You can also go to the debate section where there is further opportunity to get involved in discussions or start new debates.
Go to the campaign section to start or join a campaign.
ID Cards Or High Speed Broadband?
Posted on September 13, 2007
Filed Under Welcome To Great Britain, Politics, News | Leave a Comment
We should always remember that the money the government spends is not their own. They have at best borrowed it from the taxpayer with tacit permission to use it wisely and at worst extorted it and are parasitically exploiting it. The government is not a wage earner in itself, but absorbs a portion of the earnings of the population, almost by osmosis.
Because of this, it may be sensible for people to think about how they would like to see their money spent. Obviously, if you had to choose between having compulsory ID cards to make you more likely to have all your bank accounts drained of money through identity theft or brand new shiny schools and hospitals, you would go for the ID cards. No competition.
However, if you were given the option of ID cards or ultra fast broadband internet connections so that you could have television on demand from your computer, you might prefer the second choice. Of course, you pay for it either way. The ID cards from your own pocket or the infrastructure for high speed broadband through taxes - or perhaps increased charges from your ISP.
Here is what the LSE said about ID card costs a little while ago:
The likely cost of rolling out the UK government’s current high-tech identity cards scheme will be £10.6 billion on the ‘low cost’ estimate of researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), without any cost over-runs or implementation problems. Key uncertainties over how citizens will behave and how the scheme will work out in practice mean that the ‘high cost’ estimate could go up to £19.2 billion. A median figure for this range is £14.5 billion.
If all the costs associated with ID cards were borne by citizens (as Treasury rules currently require), the cost per card (plus passport) would be around £170 on the lowest cost basis and £230 on the median estimate.
In the Review section of The Daily Telegraph on September 8, 2007 there was this:
One estimate places the cost of rolling out Fibre to the Home (FTTH) to 90 per cent of UK households as £9.5 billion.
So, which are you going to vote for? The luxury of having a brilliant broadband future or the misery of insecure ID cards and the thin end of the wedge of a police state?
You can also go to the debate section where there is further opportunity to get involved in discussions or start new debates.
Go to the campaign section to start or join a campaign.
 |
 |
-
-
Search
-
Mail
-
About
Are you mad? Or perhaps delighted or just intrigued? Can you write? If you see something in the news or read about something which makes you want to share your opinions, you don't have to stay silent. Use the contact form and send in your contribution. We might publish it and, since it will be subject to a Creative Commons licence - see below - so might other people. You could be famous! The best bit is, we won't even pay you!
You can copy the content, subject to this Creative Commons licence:-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License
This does not cover quoted or otherwise used external sources, but does cover comments, so do not post if you do not want your comment to be used and seen on other sites. -
Admin
- Login
- Wordpress
- XHTML
-
Tag Cloud
-
children music tesco showbiz beta xoops web 2.0 social software fame celebrity journalism interesting product scares ideas george bush fairness government human rights arts money tony blair failure war fiasco uk corporatism delusions freedom stupidity lies britain america deception gordon brown hypocrisy free graphics health satire social breakdown information environment corruption food climate change slavery cms blogging world video wordpress joomla feeds inertia asda security
-