Nearly 150,000 children on DNA database

IT Pro | Nov. 5, 2007

By Nicole Kobie

Some 150,000 young people under the age of 16 are on the national DNA database (NDNAD), according to statistics obtained by the Liberal Democrat party in a parliamentary question.

The number of children on the database varies by police force, the Liberal Democrats noted. Northamptonshire has 845 DNA profiles for those under the age of 16, while the West Midlands Police has over 10,000 such profiles and the Metropolitan Police in London has 16,000.

According to a Home Office spokeswoman, the DNA samples and finger prints are taken when anyone is arrested for a recordable offence and detained in a police station. She said that the retention of such evidence is "no different to recording other forms of information such as photographs and witness statements".

Last week, the Information Commissioner's Office called on four police forces to delete old conviction data from the separate Police National Computer, stirring debate on the issue.

Of the NDNAD, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary, said: "These figures underline the shocking extent to which this database has intruded, often without parental consent, into the lives of our children... Thousands of these children will have been found guilty of no crime, yet samples of their DNA will remain on file for life."

He called on the government to find a more balanced approach to adding DNA to the database. "The disturbing and illiberal policy of adding a child's most personal information to a massive government computer system, simply on the grounds of an accusation, must stop immediately," Clegg said. "The government has to come up with a proportionate and sensible way of using this technology, not the unfair scattergun approach that currently prevails."

The Home Office spokeswoman said people under the age of 18 make up a quarter of all arrests, so a comparable number on the NDNAD is expected. "Many offences including burglaries, robberies, criminal damage and drugs offences are committed by under 18s, causing great distress to their victims. Some young people commit very serious offences," the spokeswoman said in a statement. "It is crucially important that the police have access to DNA intelligence in order to ensure that young persons who commit such crimes are detected as soon as possible - for the sake of their victims and in order to prevent further such crimes."

In her answer to the question tabled in parliament, Meg Hillier, the Home Office's parliamentary under secretary for identity, noted that 13.7 per cent of profiles on the NDNAD are replicated - repetitions of the same information for the same person under a variation of their name. Because of this, the actual number of individuals with information on the database is generally 13.7 per cent lower than the number of profiles which exist.