Head to head: DNA database

Should the DNA of every one of us be kept on a national database to help the fight against crime? BBC News Online gets opposing views on the suggestion made in the wake of the conviction of rapist Antoni Imiela.

SHAMI CHAKRABATI
DIRECTOR OF CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN GROUP LIBERTY

It is now being suggested that every man, woman and child from my toddler to my ageing mother should provide a bodily sample to the police.

Why should we all pay such a price in terms of our personal privacy in relation to the crimes of a very few people?

Is this a price that we're prepared to pay? I'm afraid for me it isn't.

Could DNA profiling have stopped serial rapist, Antoni Imiela

Under the current law and for some time the police have been able to take and keep the DNA of all convicted criminals.

I don't have any problem with that if they've committed a serious crime.

What I do have a problem with is that we are at a halfway house.

If you're completely wrongfully arrested and then acquitted your DNA is still kept.

There is a huge scope for DNA evidence to be used and abused by this government or indeed future governments

I say the DNA profile should be limited to convicted criminals and not include ordinary people.

Once a person has been acquitted of the offence then their DNA sample should be destroyed.

If there is a DNA file on everyone it automatically changes their status - once they were citizens, now they're suspects.

Secondly they will be a huge margin for human error.

Then you're in danger of taking something that's being treated as scientifically infallible.

But when you add the human element there is a great possibility for miscarriages of justice.

That's why there is less room for systemic failure if there is a smaller more manageable database.

We are told that there are around 100,000 serious offenders who consistently re-offend - we should focus on them.

We do not have a great record in this country for managing massive databases - as you can see from the failure to prevent Ian Huntley from working as a school caretaker despite his previous convictions."

There is a huge scope for DNA evidence to be used and abused by this government or indeed future governments.

The government is building up the DNA database by stealth. They have been doing it incrementally every year.

CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT KEVIN MORRIS
PRESIDENT OF THE POLICE SUPERINTENDENTS' ASSOCIATION

An estimated 600 murders could potentially be solved if there was a nationwide DNA database.

At the moment if you are arrested and convicted the government can keep your DNA on a database.

The greater good is to protect life and to protect women in particular from being raped by predatory offenders

Through legislation the government has changed that to say we can keep your DNA if you're arrested and even if you're not convicted.

But he says the DNA database would be transformed "if everybody gives a sample as a duty within society to actually keep society safe.

Then I think the issue of discrimination goes away and we get people understanding that the greater good is to protect life and to protect women in particular from being raped by predatory offenders.

That would actually would be something in the public interest and that is something that would be allowed within the civil rights side of things -- human rights allow that.

DNA alone will not convict someone.

If a DNA sample comes back and says there is a one in three million chance that this individual is responsible we still need to check that out to make sure that those other people could not have possibly been in the same place.

So if somebody alleges that you've raped someone and it's quite clear that it could not have been you, despite mixes up in DNA, then you can't be convicted.

There are some people who have written to me. One gentleman said he'd fought in the war to keep his rights.

Which is why I'm asking the question. Can we have a sensible debate around this issue involving people like Liberty to see if can we overcome people's fears?