Police Foundation - The National DNA Database

Tue, 01 December 2009 Courtesy of: Police Foundation

This Police Foundation Briefing looks at the use of DNA in forensic policing, discusses the Police Foundation study of the law relating to DNA, it's use by forensic science, the National DNA Database and what other countries do, identifing some of the key issues which arise from its use.

What is the Police Foundation?
 
The Police Foundation is the only independent charity focussed entirely on developing people's knowledge and understanding of policing and challenging the police service and the government to improve policing for the benefit of the public. The Police Foundation acts as a bridge between the public, the police and the government, while being owned by none of them.
 
About the Briefings
 
The Briefings series provides an independent assessment of specific aspects of policing in the UK. The series ensures frontline officers and staff in police forces and policing agencies are up to date with legislation, policies and practical approaches to key issues facing modern policing. Topics will include: Stop and Search, CCTV, Tasers, Police Community Support Officers, The Use of DNA in Forensic Policing, Stalking, Intercept Evidence.

The National DNA Database
 
The UK's National DNA Database is, relative to its population, the biggest database of its kind in the world with around 5.1 million DNA profiles(19). It contains four kinds of samples: scene of crime (SOC) samples; casework samples taken from suspects for comparison with a SOC sample in a specific case; criminal justice (CJ) samples; and volunteer samples. Every new profile loaded onto the database is checked against all other profiles already on the database. When a subject profile is loaded, the match can either be with a SOC profile, or against another subject profile, indicating that the individual's profile is already on the database. When a SOC profile is loaded, the match can either be to a subject profile, thereby identifying a potential suspect, or to another SOC profile, thereby linking different crimes together but without identifying a suspect. Following a match, the information from the database is passed to the relevant unit in the police force that submitted the enquiry, who will then pass on this information to the investigating officer. A 'DNA match' indicates that a subject profile loaded onto the database matches a SOC profile already on the database. A 'DNA detection' indicates that the crime has been recorded as 'cleared-up' by the police. Around half of DNA matches lead to a DNA detection(20).
 
While the NDNAD started out as an intelligence database only, its role and size expanded rapidly following the DNA Expansion Programme announced in September 1999. The aim of the Expansion Programme was to input a DNA profile for all known active suspect offenders, with a target of loading 3 million samples onto the database by April 2004(21). Prior to the introduction of the Expansion Programme, an average of 200,000 DNA profiles were added
to the database every year but after September 1999, this increased to around 500,000 per year between 2001 and 2005, and to around 700,000 since 2005(22). This programme, coupled with the legislative changes designed to facilitate the circumstances in which DNA samples could be taken from individuals, largely explain the rapid growth
and current size of the NDNAD.

Regulation and oversight

The NDNAD, including all the DNA samples and the information derived from them, is currently owned by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA). The Database itself is governed by the NDNAD Strategic Board, which comprises representatives from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the Forensic Science Service (FSS), the Home Office and the Human Genetics Commission(23). A NDNAD custodian unit in the Home Office is responsible for setting the standards of performance for forensic science laboratories who want to provide DNA profiles to the NDNAD and for ensuring that these are achieved and maintained.
 
The Forensic Science Service (FSS), which became a Government-owned Company (GovCo) in December 2005, is contracted by the Government to provide operational services for the NDNAD. This contract, which is overseen by the Home Office, requires the FSS to receive and load profiles onto the NDNAD and search it for matches. Their work is now scrutinised by an Ethics Group, created by the Government to provide Ministers with independent ethical advice on the operation and practice of the database.
 
The regulation of the database has been criticised, however, for being too easy to ignore or to overrule, often because of strong political pressure. Data collected for purposes other than solving crime (e.g. by phone companies and ISPs) has subsequently been  used by the police under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the Data Retention Directive(24). A recent case should ensure that that regulation of the use of DNA is tighter(25).
 
Some key issues relating to the NDNAD

The establishment and evolution of the NDNAD has proved more controversial than the use of DNA in forensic investigations. The debate has mostly centred on the breadth of the database, its efficiency, and on ethical issues such as the use of DNA samples for research purposes, the permanent retention of samples, and the use of familial searches.
 
Following the DNA Expansion Programme, the NDNAD now comprises nearly 4 million individual subject profiles and over 400,000 SOC sample profiles(26). Keeping the DNA profiles of criminals convicted of a serious offence on the database is not too controversial, and this framework is the one adopted by most European countries as well as most US states. Since approximately 50 percent of all crimes are committed by a hardcore of 100,000 criminals(27), keeping their details on the NDNAD seems like an effective strategy.

The rationale behind keeping the DNA profiles of individuals who have been arrested for an offence but later released or acquitted (around 800,000 according to some commentators(28)) is that the effectiveness of the database is proportional to the number of profiles in it: the higher the number of profiles, the higher the chances of a match from a crime scene. This claim, however, does not seem to be substantiated: despite the number of individual profiles almost doubling between 2002-03 and 2006-07 from around 2 million to almost 4 million (see fig. 1), the percentage of recorded crimes for which there is a DNA detection has remained constant, at around 0.37%(29). Significantly, the chance of a crime scene DNA profile matching an individual's profile on the DNA Database is higher in Scotland than in England and Wales, even though in Scotland most people have their records removed from the database on acquittal(30).

Critics have complained that keeping the profiles of innocent individuals on the NDNAD has created an arbitrary list of 'permanent suspects'. The recent ruling from S and Marper in the European Court of Human Rights, however, could force the UK to move towards a more limited database, where profiles are either kept for a specific amount of time depending on the offence an individual was arrested for, or one where individuals not convicted of an offence can have their DNA record permanently deleted from the database on request.
 
It is also argued that the make-up of the database is problematic in itself, irrespective of the legal status of the individuals on it (31).
 
There are about a million individuals on the database whose DNA profiles were added when they were children or young adults (i.e. under 18) and around half a million people had their DNA profiles added when they were under 16 years old(32). About 300,000 of those added as children are still under 18(33). Also, certain ethnic groups are disproportionally represented on the database: about 30% of the entire UK black population aged over 10 has their DNA profile on the database(34). The proportion is much higher for young black men: in 2007, Baroness Scotland confirmed to the Home Affairs Committee that three-quarters of the young black male population would soon be on the DNA database(35).
 
It has also been argued that both the permanent storage of DNA samples and the speculative searching of DNA profiles breaches privacy laws(36). Privacy has already been eroded through the expansion of CCTV, the retention of fingerprints, GPS technology, tracking on the internet, or even systems such as Google Earth. In the words of Sun Microsystems Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy, "You have no privacy, get over it."(37). It has been advocated that to protect privacy in the long-term, the amount of data that is collected should be minimised(38).
 
While a DNA profile is only a sequence of numbers, algorithms are now being developed by computer scientists that will enable them to reveal new information from previously-held data(39). Apart from allowing individual DNA profiles to be matched, the database does not reveal any other information apart from gender, however this could change in the near future(40). Systems of cryptography which could prevent an individual or company from obtaining personal information from a DNA profile do exist, and there is a strong argument for applying those systems to the NDNAD(41).
 
Issues also arise from the storage of DNA samples by private companies and their possible use in controversial research(42). DNA samples contain unlimited genetic data, including health-related material and information about who may be related to whom, so there are real concerns about who has access to them, particularly since the Home Office is accepting applications for the use of the DNA database for studies not directly linked to preventing crime(43).
Facilitating research concerned with identifying an individual's genetic predisposition or attempts to find a 'criminal gene' is highly contentious, as is research undertaken for commercial purposes, especially since the individuals concerned will not have consented to their DNA being used in this way.
 
Finally, there are the risks that governments might lose the information contained on the database or that a malignant government could one day use this information to the detriment of its citizens. The former seems well-founded in light of recent incidents such as the loss of CDs containing the personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants(44).

References

19. Home Office (2007) The National DNA Database Annual Report, 2006/07, Home Office
20. GeneWatch UK (2006) The DNA Expansion Programme: Reporting Real Achievement? February 2006, GeneWatch UK
21.  McCartney, C. (2006) Forensic Investigation and Criminal Justice, Willan Publishing
22. Home Office (2007) The National DNA Database Annual Report, 2006/07, Home Office
23. Home Office (2007) The National DNA Database Annual Report, 2006/07, Home Office
24. See Attorney General's Reference No 3 of 1999
25. London Borough of Lambeth v S, C, V, & J (No 3) in the Family Division of the High Court, 2006
26. Home Office (2007) The National DNA  Database Annual Report, 2006/07, Home Office
27. Home Office (2004), Home Office Strategic Plan, Home Office
28. Hansard 15 Sep 2008 : Column 2070W
29. GeneWatch UK (2008), The National DNA Database: Q&A, updated May 2008, GeneWatch UK
30. GeneWatch UK (2008) Ten Myths about the DNA Database, GeneWatch UK
31. Leapman, B. 'Three in four young black Men on the DNA database', Sunday Telegraph 5 Nov 2006.
32. Hansard 20 Nov 2008: Col 723W
33. Hansard 27 Oct 2008: Col 677W
34. Hansard 10 Nov 2008: Col 800W
35. Home Affairs Committee, Second Report, found at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmhaff/181/18102.htm
36.  GeneWatch UK (2007) Police Retention of DNA, February 2007, GeneWatch UK  
37. San Francisco Chronicle (2003) 'On the Record: Scott McNealy',14 September 2003, SFGate.com 
 38. House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, 'A surveillance Society', Fifth Report of the Session 2007/08
39. Bohannon, P., Jakobsson, M. And Srikwan, S. (2000) Cryptographic Approaches to Privacy in  Forensic DNA Databases, Public Key Cryptography
40. Bohannon, P., Jakobsson, M. And Srikwan, S. (2000) Cryptographic Approaches to Privacy in Forensic DNA Databases, Public Key Cryptography
41.  Bohannon, P., Jakobsson, M. And Srikwan, S. (2000) Cryptographic Approaches to Privacy in Forensic DNA Databases, Public Key Cryptography
42.  Home Office (2008) National DNA Database Ethics Group Notes, Home Office and see 'Genetic Research and DNA Storage', GeneWatch UK, found at: http://www.genewatch.org/sub-539491
43.  Home Office (2008) National DNA Database Ethics Group Notes, Home Office and see 'Genetic Research and DNA Storage', GeneWatch UK, found at: http://www.genewatch.org/sub-539491
44. Harrison, D. 'Government's record year of data loss', Daily Telegraph 7 January 2008

Next week the briefing will look at what other countries do in relation to DNA in forensic policing and the Police Foundation will come to their conclusion on the subject

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