The UK has the largest database of citizens’ DNA in the world. Around 4 million people have their DNA information stored on police databases – at least five times higher as a proportion of our population than any other country.

And while DNA is a vital tool in crime-fighting, there are tens of thousands of people on the police database who have never even been charged with an offence - let alone convicted.

The police have the power to take and store DNA from everyone they arrest, even if that person is released without any charge. Once your DNA is on the database, it can’t be taken off, even if you’re proved to be innocent in court.

There are now over a million people on the National DNA database who do not have a police record of a caution. Nearly 25,000 of them are children who have never been charged with an offence.

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The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said.
The present database in England and Wales holds details of 4m people who are guilty or cleared of a crime.

Lord Justice Sedley said this was indefensible and biased against ethnic minorities, and it would be fairer to include everyone, guilty or innocent.

Ministers said DNA helped tackle crime, but there were no plans for a voluntary national or compulsory UK database.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said to expand the database would create "huge logistical and bureaucratic issues" and civil liberty concerns.

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So, would you give your DNA if it was proved to fight crime?

Only if I were accused of a crime that I knew I didn't commit, otherwise what would be the point of me giving my dna?

I was A soldier My Government has my DNA anyway......maybe they will CLONE me lol

Why not? For clone any way. Most men testostrone levels are drop world wide every generation. Conicidentically lowering male ferility. In the future it might be that DNA datebases are the way for human civilization to keep going.

DNA evidence is not as iron-clad as many people believe, this is especially true of law enforcement authoritarians.

I’ve seen cases on TV where people have been convicted based on DNA evidence and later found to be innocent!

In fact, one particular case that really upset me was about some guy who lived somewhere in the Midwest USA. His DNA was on file with law enforcement and because of his DNA he was charged (and convicted) of a murder that had been committed in California. The man claimed that he had never been to California in his life. Yet the police claimed that his DNA was all over a bloody apartment there where some woman had been raped and murdered.

He was actually sentenced to prison on DNA evidence ALONE!!!

He spent several years in prison before the true murder was actually found by mistake. A serial killer was caught and confessed to the particular murder that this other guy had been charged with based on DNA evidence alone.

People need to wake up the DNA is not as iron-clad as they think. In fact, there can never be a match made with absolute certainty. There will always be a certain percentage of error.

After hearing about that one particular case I have often had bad dreams about the police coming to my door and arresting me for some crime I never committed.

I thought they had to show “opportunity” and all sort of other things before they could get a conviction. But with the guy in the case I described above there couldn’t have been any opportunity because the man was never even in California in his entire life.

So it’s pretty scary when they give that much credence to DNA that they will convict based on DNA alone.

I think it’s powerful evidence in among other evidence, but to convict someone based on DNA alone is scary.

By the way, I saw this case on TV some time back and I can’t remember anymore details than I’ve already given here. But I’ve heard of other cases where DNA was used to convict innocent people as well. Of course, it’s also been used to free innocent people too which is good.

The bottom line though is that it’s not iron-clad as stand-alone evidence. And people need to be made aware of this. It’s simply not infallible.

But for one reason or other, 4 million of us living in the UK have been swabbed.

I got accused of something and they swabbed me. It was obviously rubbish as I dont walk with a wooden leg or have a hook where my hand used to be, but just the same, even to be proved innocent, Im still in the machine!

I’m all for it if it can prove you’re innocent!

In fact, I’m all for it if it can ‘help’ convict the perpetrator.

The part that scares me is that DNA evidence alone should never be taken as absolute prove of anything.

There is a slim (but real) possibility that it could be an incorrect match.

Moreover, even if it is a correct match, all that it shows is that your DNA wound up at the crime scene. It doesn’t prove when your DNA got there or how it got there. You might have been at that location prior to the crime. Your DNA being there doesn’t prove that you actually committed the crime. DNA is not time-stamped.

Finally, you DNA could potentially end up in places you’ve never even been! You hair contains your DNA and your hair could potentially end up in places you’ve never been. This, of course, is especially true if it was planted there as a distraction from the real criminal. So be sure you trust your barber!

Like I say, I’m all for it as “additional evidence”, but I back off when they want to use it as the sole proof of guilt.

I do know that there are currently detectives searching through public data banks for DNA that matches up to DNA found at unsolved crime scenes. The problem with this is that mistakes can be made. The DNA records from the original crime scene could potentially be incorrect (especially if they were older DNA records). So they could potentially match up with your DNA when in reality it’s just a mismatch.

So it can be a potentially scary situation for innocent people. Fortunately this kind of thing isn’t too common, but that only makes it that much worse when it does happen because no one’s going to believe that it’s a fluke.

I think there should be a law that states that no one can be sent to prison based on DNA evidence ALONE. There needs to be other evidence too. I'm sure in most cases there is, but I've heard of cases where DNA was the ONLY evidence used to convict. And that's just not right. That's the part that scares me.