MP wants ALL men in Bristol DNA screened to find killer

[Magilla]

For me it's the exact opposite - I don't know anybody who sees their DNA being on record as the slightest problem.

 

You don't? I don't know anyone who doesn't see the massive problems that can occur. How odd.

 

There have been several abuses and people have been dragged out of bed, handcuffed and paraded out to the police van infront of their neighbours despite being totally innocent.

 

What do you have to fear from the state having information on your DNA?

 

See above. Regardless, as someone who is innocent of any crime, there is no good reason for the police to have my DNA. I'm saving them time & money by ruling myself out of their investigation.

 

It's no more logical than being afraid of them having your photograph - or would that bother you as well?

 

Yes, ofcourse, why should the police have my photo when I am innocent of any crime? Also, I can dispute an image by looking at it, I can't with a DNA sample. Not to mention the numerous errors and some duplication in the database.

 

The primary reason the police collect evidence is to make a case *against* you, they're not in the business of proving your innocence.

 

It's clear from numerous cases in the past that many within the police force view the fact that you're on the DNA database as a case of "no smoke without fire" and this has led to many injustices (many of which have been detailed in the press and on TV).

 

There is no good reason for people who have not been convicted of a crime to have their DNA profile stored on the DNA database. (IMHO)

Edited January 10, 2011 by Magilla

[nightrider]

Is the worry that your DNA might be missused by those that hold it and you end up being implicated in a crime that you have had nothing to do with ?

 

well yes that can happen. I believe the statistic is that around 6 people in england should match any given sample. So if you start testing huge samples of people there is a possibility you will tag the wrong person, but not the other 5 (one of whom will be the guilty one).

[splodgeyAl]

It's not that simple.

When evidence 'cannot be confirmed', it tends not to stand up well in court.

 

If there happened to be a murder in another part of the UK and some evidence found matched my DNA (which is far less likely to happen than me winning the lottery), I'm quite confident that the Poice would realise I had no motive, was unlikely to have been there, probably had an alibi, and that the DNA match was coincidental.

 

 

BUT just how likely is it for somebody else's DNA to match mine, unless I have a twin?

 

This article is written by an alarmist who doens't like the idea of helping the polce by holding records of DNA, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/may/25/dna-database-false-positive but even he quotes this:

 

Costello says that it is accepted that under ideal conditions there will be one false match per one trillion checks. He calculates that about 2.5tn comparisons have been made (500,000 [crime scene samples] x 5,000,000 [subject samples] = 2,500,000,000,000) so it is reasonable to expect that at least two errors have occurred.

 

One in a trillion - and then what are the chances that I would actually be somebody with a motive but no alibi? Come on folks, this paranoia is just silly.

And would that paranoia still be considered silly if / when the British Stalin comes to power?

[Magilla]

If there happened to be a murder in another part of the UK and some evidence found matched my DNA (which is far less likely to happen than me winning the lottery), I'm quite confident that the Poice would realise I had no motive, was unlikely to have been there, probably had an alibi, and that the DNA match was coincidental.

 

Unless there isn't anything else for the police to go on, at which time you become suspect No.1, regardless of how ludicrous it sounds.

 

If you have no allibi, you're looking at a very expensive and difficult fight to avoid conviction.

 

One in a trillion - and then what are the chances that I would actually be somebody with a motive but no alibi? Come on folks, this paranoia is just silly.

 

It may be if these abuses hadn't *already* happened. What's silly is pretending they haven't and don't happen.

[spooky3]

Personally, I don't really want them to have my photo either. But obviously I'm up to no good to want that attitude.

 

Maybe understanding the realities of running any database might cause you to change your mind, but in the meantime, the UK DNA database is full of errors...

 

Sounds like the professionally run outfit we've all come to expect from our various governments

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/17/dna_v_rozzers/

 

The way that sounds in the beginning of the article infers that it's more of a database problem. Not that actual data is assigned to the wrong people, rather i'd suspect, is missing an associated id.

 

The second issues are just duplicates with differing ids, but still the same person. That article was cleverly written as a scaremonger!

[spooky3]

You don't? I don't know anyone who doesn't see the massive problems that can occur. How odd.

 

There have been several abuses and people have been dragged out of bed, handcuffed and paraded out to the police van infront of their neighbours despite being totally innocent.

...

 

Can you show any references to this. I searched yesterday and didn't find any!

[splodgeyAl]

well yes that can happen. I believe the statistic is that around 6 people in england should match any given sample. So if you start testing huge samples of people there is a possibility you will tag the wrong person, but not the other 5 (one of whom will be the guilty one).

One of the issues that even advocates of the database have is that the more (innocent) people on the database, the more false positives (obviously) which could render the thing an expensive white elephant.

 

Not that the government would know much about those.

[Conrod]

And would that paranoia still be considered silly if / when the British Stalin comes to power?

I can see it would be a waste of time discussing this any more with you.

[Conrod]

It may be if these abuses hadn't *already* happened. What's silly is pretending they haven't and don't happen.

As with the poster above - I can't find any.

 

Where has an innocent person been dragged out of bed and charged with a murder he didn't commit based on incorrect DNA records?

[spooky3]

One of the issues that even advocates of the database have is that the more (innocent) people on the database, the more false positives (obviously) which could render the thing an expensive white elephant.

 

Not that the government would know much about those.

 

All the DB searches will come with a probability match.

 

I can't see the logic as to how the more "innocent" people on the DB will produce more false positives, other than the previously stated error margin of something like 1 in a trillion. In 2009 the UK only had 61,838,154 people living here.