Source:
The GuardianThe European court of human rights in Strasbourg said that keeping innocent people's DNA records on a criminal register breached article eight of the Human Rights Convention, covering the right to respect for private and family life.
Keeping DNA material from those who were "entitled to the presumption of innocence" as they had never been convicted of an offence carried "the risk of stigmatisation", the ruling said.
Attacking the "blanket and indiscriminate nature" of the power to retain data, the judges said protections offered by article eight "would be unacceptably weakened if the use of modern scientific techniques in the criminal justice system were allowed at any cost and without carefully balancing the potential benefits of the extensive use of such techniques against important private-life interests".
The decision could oblige the government to order the destruction of DNA data belonging to those without criminal convictions among the approximately 4.5m records on the England, Wales and Northern Ireland database.
Scotland already destroys DNA samples taken during criminal investigations from people, who are eventually not charged or who are later acquitted.
Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/04/law-genetics
One victory against the British surveillance state.