India can learn from the UK’s mistakes with DNA

In the UK, former Prime Minister Tony Blair expanded the UK’s criminal DNA database to include more than a million innocent people, plus children convicted of very minor offences. As more people were caught up in this unfair system, the DNA database became highly controversial and was ruled in breach of human rights law by the European Court of Human Rights. Some 1.7 million DNA profiles have since been removed from the computer database and most biological samples collected from individuals are now destroyed within six months.

Although many claimed that taking innocent people off the UK DNA database would allow criminals to get away, this is not in fact the case. Keeping innocent people’s DNA profiles did not help to solve more crimes and since they have been taken off the database it has become more effective at solving crimes.

As public scrutiny of the DNA database increased, many other lessons were learnt along the way. For example, if the police are given powers to collect DNA routinely on arrest they will start arresting people just to get their DNA, leading to abuse. If the general public are to trust the system it needs proper independent oversight: not only a Board to run it but also a regulator to check for errors and mistakes and an ethics board to advise on tricky issues, such as obtaining consent to take samples from a child who is a victim of a crime. Uses of the database must also be restricted. DNA can legitimately be collected from a member of the public with consent if their house is burgled, because it is needed to eliminate their profile from the crime scene. However, it should not be compared with family members’ DNA profiles to identify non-paternity or analysed further to predict genetic health problems. And innocent people should not have genetic information retained by the State if it is no longer needed to investigate a crime. 

India’s draft DNA Profiling Bill has been widely criticised for a lack of safeguards to protect human rights and privacy, and to prevent misuse and miscarriages of justice. There are no meaningful provisions to restrict when DNA is collected, remove most innocent people’s records, destroy samples, restrict uses, or ensure adequate oversight. 

The most important lesson India can learn from the UK experience is to include proper safeguards at the start and get the law right first time. Otherwise trust will be lost in an important tool for solving crime.

The author is Director of GeneWatchUK and a participant in the Forensic Genetics Policy Initiative (http://dnapolicyinitiative.org). She has provided expert evidence on DNA Databases to the European Court of Human Rights and to the UK Parliament