Government drops DNA proposals

The Policing and Crime Bill faced opposition in the House of Lords

The Home Office yesterday announced that it would drop a plan to keep the DNA profiles of those arrested but not convicted of a crime for between six and 12 years.

This is the second measure to be dropped from the Policing and Crime Bill which is currently in the House of Lords, and is a move by the government to try to get the legislation through the lords before the Queens speech.

This measure goes against a European court ruling in December which found it was unlawful to keep DNA profiles of arrested but unconvicted people, saying that such a policy did not differentiate between criminals and people who had never been convicted. Currently the DNA of 850,000 such people can be held indefinitely on the database.

The government had been looking to clarify the law by providing a six to 12 year timeframe for retention.

The Home Office will now look to introduce the proposal again in new legislation brought in after the Queen's speech next month.

A proposal to introduce special injunctions to tackle inner city gang membership was also watered down last week.

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, welcomed the news.

“This is another victory for Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention which protects the personal privacy of everyone in Britain," she said.

"This law was breached by the largest DNA database per capita in the world and would still be breached by the Home Office’s discredited proposals."