A topic I feel strongly about. The government announced this week that innocent people will have their DNA stored for 6 years instead of for-ever. This is 6 years too long.
In Scotland such DNA is destroyed immediately. The European Court has said its illegal. In England, mother of the free, the police can take a sample and keep it.
What would I do if mistakenly taken to a police station and told to give a DNA sample. In my imagination I refuse to give one but in reality probably would. It’s Catch-22, refuse to give a DNA sample and be guilty of an offence so you have to give one.
Why do I object? Mainly because if I’ve done nothing wrong I don’t want to appear on any police files. It isn’t too long a journey from your name being on a database to being on a list of suspects. Not much further from being a suspect to being questioned and people asking things that maybe stick. Your wife saying “Why did he say were you in that pub three weeks ago” or similar.
Every time a law comes out to save us from evil it is mis-used so that dog-walkers are photographed and cash from foreign countries is with-held under terrorist laws. Do I trust government bodies to hold data on me and not to mis-use it. Not at all!