DNA Database of Innocents – judges say No!

In a unanimous judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (comprising 17 senior judges from across Europe) two men have successfully argued that, by keeping their DNA and fingerprints on file, South Yorkshire Police violated their rights. The judges ruled the retention of the men’s DNA “failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests,” and that the UK government “had overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard”.

The court also ruled “the retention in question constituted a disproportionate interference with the applicants’ right to respect for private life and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”.

The British government fought them tooth and nail – and still lost. The policy of keeping a police database of some nine million innocent citizens’ DNA in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will surely now have to be brought in line with Scotland, and our other less authoritarian European partners.