The BBC writes that 519 requests from law enforcement agencies to extract data from the UK DNA database have been granted since 2004. No requests have been denied. The BBC writes about the database:
It emerged in January that 24,000 under-18s never cautioned, charged or convicted are on the database, which was established in 1995.
Sweden has been actively moving towards the implementation of a DNA database with the law professor Madeleine Leijonhufvud and the Minister of Justice Tomas Bodström acting main propaganda exponent with simplistic arguments in the national newspapers. Henrik Sandklef and I wrote a debate article (in Swedish) countering some of these arguments.
The short version of my beef against, is firstly that DNA databases is that they re-inforce the idea of technological infallability while being as error prone as any information system. Secondly they will be abused.
As this BBC article shows they have been done in the UK – there is no reason to expect that the same abuse will not occur in other countries.
A very good book on the role of DNA in the criminal justice system is Lazar’s DNA and the Criminal Justice System: The Technology of Justice.
(via Battleangel)