One in 10 Britons on police DNA database

More than 5.5 million records held on controversial system

The DNA database is still growing

One in 10 Britons has a profile stored on the police DNA database, according to the latest Conservative Party claim based on Home Office figures.

Shadow Home Office minister James Brokenshire said the latest statistics showed 5,910,172 profiles on the database on 15 October of which 5,532,847 had been taken by police forces in England and Wales from a population totalling 54 million.

He said the government is "obsessed with growing the DNA database for the sake of it regardless of guilt or innocence" and is dragging its feet complying with the European Court of Human Rights ruling that its approach is "unlawful".

Right-wing pressure group The Taxpayers Alliance has also published a poll that suggested four in five people fear freedoms are being eroded in Britain.

In reply to one question in the poll, conducted by PoliticsHome, 86 per cent of people think the government cannot be trusted to keep personal information files safe, up from 58 per cent seven years ago.

Director Alex Deane said the results show people feel freedoms are being eroded.

"The government continues to pursue expensive and invasive surveillance methods that serve only to create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens,” he said.

The concern about the security of information was highest (78 per cent) among Tories and lowest (36 per cent) among Labour voters.

The Home Office has announced that proposals to make the DNA database comply with the European Court of Human Rights ruling will be included in the Queen's Speech, that will set out the government's legislative programme for the last session of parliament before the General Election next year.