5 September 2007

Privacy and civil liberties campaigners NO2ID [1] slammed suggestions this morning that everyone’s DNA should be added to the national DNA database [2].

Phil Booth, NO2ID national coordinator, said:

You can’t make an “indefensible” system better by expanding it. The only way to tackle the unfairness of the DNA database [3] and restore trust in the system is to remove the records of every innocent person currently held. Anything else is a perversion of justice.

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1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. Scroll down http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing. NO2ID is affiliated to by the National Union of Journalists:

http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1595

2) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6979138.stm – All UK ‘must be on DNA database’, BBC News, 5/9/07.

3) The BBC story grossly underestimates the number of innocent children on the DNA database – now over 100,000 according to calculations made by GeneWatch UK and Action on Rights for Children (ARCH), based on Government figures released in May 2007. Full briefing at

http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/Childrenfigsbrieffinal.doc