UK: Police may be given power to take DNA samples in the street

[abdulhakeem]

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Thursday August 2, 2007
The Guardian

The Home Office is considering giving the police the power to take a DNA sample on the street, without taking the suspect to a police station, as well as taking samples from suspects in relatively minor offences such as littering, speeding or not wearing a seat belt.

The move comes as an official genetics watchdog prepares a public inquiry into the police national DNA database, following concern over the retention of samples from people acquitted of any offence, and disclosure that the database holds DNA records for one in three of British black males.The database is the largest in the world, with 3.4m profiles, more than 5% of the UK population. If the powers are granted, it would expand massively.

Baroness Kennedy, chair of the Human Genetics Commission, said the power of the police in England and Wales to take DNA samples from any arrested individual without requiring their assent was unrivalled in the world. "We want to ensure the public voice is heard on issues people think are relevant. The Citizen's Inquiry is likely to grapple with issues such as whether storing the DNA profiles of victims and suspects who are not charged, or who are subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing, is justified by the need to fight crime."

She added that under law it was very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to have your sample removed. "On the other hand a steadily increasing number of serious crimes, including murder and rapes, are being solved and criminals brought to justice with its help. It is likely that the use of DNA information by police authorities for criminal intelligence purposes will grow. It is therefore vital that the public are able to voice their views."

The inquiry will recruit representative panels of the public to consider social and ethical issues in police use of DNA.

The initiative comes as the Home Office finishes consulting on police powers to extend use of the DNA database, with a view to legislation this autumn. The results show wide support from the police to take DNA, fingerprints and footwear impressions on the street to confirm identity and check against the national database, and support to lower the threshold to take in suspects in minor offences. A Home Office paper summarising the consultation said respondents "welcomed the ability to reduce the threshold, including to the extent of allowing for the taking of fingerprints, DNA and footwear impressions for non-recordable offenses for the purpose of offender identification and searching databases".

It adds: "The second issue relates to the taking of fingerprints, photographs and samples on the street. This was welcomed at an operational level as a means of increasing officer confidence in knowing who they are dealing with and enabling them to deal more effectively with the incident at the scene."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,2139674,00.html

[Redmist]

Another step closer to an orwellian big brother society.

[Lord Summerisle]

I have no problem with this.

If you haven't done anything wrong, theres no reason to get into a tizz.

[Omar Mukhtar]

Unbelievable man, what next tracking system inside humans.

Another step closer to an orwellian big brother society.

True, they even got camera installed in the majids now. There around 5-6 in our local masjid.

[abdulhakeem]

I have no problem with this.

If you haven't done anything wrong, theres no reason to get into a tizz.quite some naive thinking... dna-samples can be easily misused - it just depends what happens with them.

[peace2u]

why would they take your dna sample on the streets?? run a light, take a sample...for what purpose does it serve. I can see if they are trying to rule out a suspect but for minor stuff like littering :eek: not to mention, doing it on the streets opens up the door for major mistakes on the part of the police officers, mixing samples and/or possible contamination of samples. If samples have to be taken, it should be done at the station.


Peace

[Lord Summerisle]

quite some naive thinking... dna-samples can be easily misused - it just depends what happens with them.


Well, I'm not paranoid and my conscience is clear. I won't be losing sleep.

[abdulhakeem]

Well, I'm not paranoid and my conscience is clear. I won't be losing sleep.

|
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V

"principiis obsta"

[Redmist]

^
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Very true.

[abdulhakeem]

Well, I'm not paranoid and my conscience is clear. I won't be losing sleep.have thou not learned anything from history? i.e. the stasi state of the gdr? or combined with "patriotism" the 1000-yr-reich that lead to wwII?

it usually is a creeping/stealthy process - they all started like this - step by step - until its too late.

[abdulhakeem]

a poem by martin niemoeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niemöller):

"First they came..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...)

when the nazis came for the communists,
i remained silent;
i was not a communist.

when they locked up the social democrats,
i remained silent;
i was not a social democrat.

when they came for the trade unionists,
i did not speak out;
i was not a trade unionist.

when they came for me;
there was no one left to speak out.

[abdulhakeem]

related: UK: Children of 11 to be fingerprinted (http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115851)

Fingerprinting School Kids Stuns Britons (http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120414)

Warning over 'big brother' data risk

By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent
08/08/2007

The growing dangers of Britain's "surveillance society" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=3HBCX3T4AUQM3QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ 0IV0?xml=/news/2007/07/24/nschools124.xml) were raised yesterday amid fears that more and more private information is being shared out without people's knowledge.

Your View: Has Big Brother taken over our society (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=3HBCX3T4AUQM3QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ 0IV0?xml=/news/2007/08/08/view08.xml)?

Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, published new guidance on the Information Commission's website (www.ico.gov.uk) to warn consumers that "in some cases, information may be shared without you even knowing about it".

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, organisations can legally pass on data held about individuals where they have just cause.

Examples given by the new information commission guidance included credit checks by lenders verifying someone's financial standing, a hospital sharing information with a local GP, and a local authority sharing information with the Department for Work and Pensions to allow it to work out a benefit payment.

But the new guidance comes amid claims from privacy campaigners that there was "almost zero [public] awareness" over the scale of information sharing. your view

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/08/nbigbro108.xml

[Rafeena]

salam
personally i think thats stupid.

[THE PATH 2]

Do We Have To Spit On Their Hands?

[Ignatius F. Peace]

refuse ... what are they gonna do? ...

You show me how my DNA may possibly be linked to a crime ... then call my attorney ... we'll make arrangements if necessary ... Orwell got his dates wrong ...

[abdulhakeem]

Put young children on DNA list, urge police

· 'We must target potential offenders'
· Teachers' fury over 'dangerous' plan

Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana
The Observer,
Sunday March 16 2008

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.'

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place. There are currently 4.5 million genetic samples on the UK database - the largest in Europe - but police believe more are required to reduce crime further. 'The number of unsolved crimes says we are not sampling enough of the right people,' Pugh told The Observer. However, he said the notion of universal sampling - everyone being forced to give their genetic samples to the database - is currently prohibited by cost and logistics.

Civil liberty groups condemned his comments last night by likening them to an excerpt from a 'science fiction novel'. One teaching union warned that it was a step towards a 'police state'.

Pugh's call for the government to consider options such as placing primary school children who have not been arrested on the database is supported by elements of criminological theory. A well-established pattern of offending involves relatively trivial offences escalating to more serious crimes. Senior Scotland Yard criminologists are understood to be confident that techniques are able to identify future offenders.

A recent report from the think-tank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) called for children to be targeted between the ages of five and 12 with cognitive behavioural therapy, parenting programmes and intensive support. Prevention should start young, it said, because prolific offenders typically began offending between the ages of 10 and 13. Julia Margo, author of the report, entitled 'Make me a Criminal', said: 'You can carry out a risk factor analysis where you look at the characteristics of an individual child aged five to seven and identify risk factors that make it more likely that they would become an offender.' However, she said that placing young children on a database risked stigmatising them by identifying them in a 'negative' way.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, denounced any plan to target youngsters. 'Whichever bright spark at Acpo thought this one up should go back to the business of policing or the pastime of science fiction novels,' she said. 'The British public is highly respectful of the police and open even to eccentric debate, but playing politics with our innocent kids is a step too far.'

Chris Davis, of the National Primary Headteachers' Association, said most teachers and parents would find the suggestion an 'anathema' and potentially very dangerous. 'It could be seen as a step towards a police state,' he said. 'It is condemning them at a very young age to something they have not yet done. They may have the potential to do something, but we all have the potential to do things. To label children at that stage and put them on a register is going too far.'

Davis admitted that most teachers could identify children who 'had the potential to have a more challenging adult life', but said it was the job of teachers to support them.

Pugh, though, believes that measures to identify criminals early would save the economy huge sums - violent crime alone costs the UK £13bn a year - and significantly reduce the number of offences committed. However, he said the British public needed to move away from regarding anyone on the DNA database as a criminal and accepted it was an emotional issue.

'Fingerprints, somehow, are far less contentious,' he said. 'We have children giving their fingerprints when they are borrowing books from a library.'

Last week it emerged that the number of 10 to 18-year-olds placed on the DNA database after being arrested will have reached around 1.5 million this time next year. Since 2004 police have had the power to take DNA samples from anyone over the age of 10 who is arrested, regardless of whether they are later charged, convicted, or found to be innocent.

Concern over the issue of civil liberties will be further amplified by news yesterday that commuters using Oyster smart cards could have their movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/16/youthjustice.children

[abdulhakeem]

MI5 seeks powers to trawl records in new terror hunt

Counter-terrorism experts call it a 'force multiplier': an attack combining slaughter and electronic chaos. Now Britain's security services want total access to commuters' travel records to help them meet the threat

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
The Observer,
Sunday March 16 2008

Millions of commuters could have their private movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services.

Records of journeys made by people using smart cards that allow 17 million Britons to travel by underground, bus and train with a single swipe at the ticket barrier are among a welter of private information held by the state to which MI5 and police counter-terrorism officers want access in order to help identify patterns of suspicious behaviour.

The request by the security services, described by shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night as 'extraordinary', forms part of a fierce Whitehall debate over how much access the state should have to people's private lives in its efforts to combat terrorism.

It comes as the Cabinet Office finalises Gordon Brown's new national security strategy, expected to identify a string of new threats to Britain - ranging from future 'water wars' between countries left drought-ridden by climate change to cyber-attacks using computer hacking technology to disrupt vital elements of national infrastructure.

The fear of cyber-warfare has climbed Whitehall's agenda since last year's attack on the Baltic nation of Estonia, in which Russian hackers swamped state servers with millions of electronic messages until they collapsed. The Estonian defence and foreign ministries and major banks were paralysed, while even its emergency services call system was temporarily knocked out: the attack was seen as a warning that battles once fought by invading armies or aerial bombardment could soon be replaced by virtual, but equally deadly, wars in cyberspace.

While such new threats may grab headlines, the critical question for the new security agenda is how far Britain is prepared to go in tackling them. What are the limits of what we want our security services to know? And could they do more to identify suspects before they strike?

One solution being debated in Whitehall is an unprecedented unlocking of data held by public bodies, such as the Oyster card records maintained by Transport for London and smart cards soon to be introduced in other cities in the UK, for use in the war against terror. The Office of the Information Commissioner, the watchdog governing data privacy, confirmed last night that it had discussed the issue with government but declined to give details, citing issues of national security.

Currently the security services can demand the Oyster records of specific individuals under investigation to establish where they have been, but cannot trawl the whole database. But supporters of calls for more sharing of data argue that apparently trivial snippets - like the journeys an individual makes around the capital - could become important pieces of the jigsaw when fitted into a pattern of other publicly held information on an individual's movements, habits, education and other personal details. That could lead, they argue, to the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects.

Critics, however, fear a shift towards US-style 'data mining', a controversial technique using powerful computers to sift and scan millions of pieces of data, seeking patterns of behaviour which match the known profiles of terrorist suspects. They argue that it is unfair for millions of innocent people to have their privacy invaded on the off-chance of finding a handful of bad apples.

'It's looking for a needle in a haystack, and we all make up the haystack,' said former Labour minister Michael Meacher, who has a close interest in data sharing. 'Whether all our details have to be reviewed because there is one needle among us - I don't think the case is made.'

Jago Russell, policy officer at the campaign group Liberty, said technological advances had made 'mass computerised fishing expeditions' easier to undertake, but they offered no easy answers. 'The problem is what do you do once you identify somebody who has a profile that suggests suspicions,' he said. 'Once the security services have identified somebody who fits a pattern, it creates an inevitable pressure to impose restrictions.'

Individuals wrongly identified as suspicious might lose high-security jobs, or have their immigration status brought into doubt, he said. Ministers are also understood to share concerns over civil liberties, following public opposition to ID cards, and the debate is so sensitive that it may not even form part of Brown's published strategy.

But if there is no consensus yet on the defence, there is an emerging agreement on the mode of attack. The security strategy will argue that in the coming decades Britain faces threats of a new and different order. And its critics argue the government is far from ready.

The cyber-assault on Estonia confirmed that the West now faces a relatively cheap, low-risk means of warfare that can be conducted from anywhere in the world, with the power to plunge developed nations temporarily into the stone age, disabling everything from payroll systems that ensure millions of employees get paid to the sewage treatment processes that make our water safe to drink or the air traffic control systems keeping planes stacked safely above Heathrow.

And it is one of the few weapons which is most effective against more sophisticated western societies, precisely because of their reliance on computers. 'As we become more advanced, we become more vulnerable,' says Alex Neill, head of the Asia Security programme at the defence think-tank RUSI, who is an expert on cyber-attack.

The nightmare scenario now emerging is its use by terrorists as a so-called 'force multiplier' - combining a cyber-attack to paralyse the emergency services with a simultaneous atrocity such as the London Tube bombings.

Victims would literally have nowhere to turn for help, raising the death toll and sowing immeasurable panic. 'Instead of using three or four aircraft as in 9/11, you could do one major event and then screw up the communications network behind the emergency services, or attack the Underground control network so you have one bomb but you lock up the whole network,' says Davis. 'You take the ramifications of the attack further. The other thing to bear in mind is that we are ultimately vulnerable because London is a financial centre.'

In other words, cyber-warfare does not have to kill to bring a state to its knees: hackers could, for example, wipe electronic records detailing our bank accounts, turning millionaires into apparent paupers overnight.

So how easy would it be? Estonia suffered a relatively crude form of attack known as 'denial of service', while paralysing a secure British server would be likely to require more sophisticated 'spy' software which embeds itself quietly in a computer network and scans for secret passwords or useful information - activating itself later to wreak havoc.

Neill said that would require specialist knowledge to target the weakest link in any system: its human user. 'You will get an email, say, that looks like it's from a trusted colleague, but in fact that email has been cloned. There will be an attachment that looks relevant to your work: it's an interesting document, but embedded in it invisibly is "malware" rogue software which implants itself in the operating systems. From that point, the computer is compromised and can be used as a platform to exploit other networks.'

Only governments and highly sophisticated criminal organisations have such a capability now, he argues, but there are strong signs that al-Qaeda is acquiring it: 'It is a hallmark of al-Qaeda anyway that they do simultaneous bombings to try to herd victims into another area of attack.'

The West, of course, may not simply be the victim of cyber-wars: the United States is widely believed to be developing an attack capability, with suspicions that Baghdad's infrastructure was electronically disrupted during the 2003 invasion.

So given its ability to cause as much damage as a traditional bomb, should cyber-attack be treated as an act of war? And what rights under international law does a country have to respond, with military force if necessary? Next month Nato will tackle such questions in a strategy detailing how it would handle a cyber-attack on an alliance member. Suleyman Anil, Nato's leading expert on cyber-attack, hinted at its contents when he told an e-security conference in London last week that cyber-attacks should be taken as seriously as a missile strike - and warned that a determined attack on western infrastructure would be 'practically impossible to stop'.

Tensions are likely to increase in a globalised economy, where no country can afford to shut its borders to foreign labour - an issue graphically highlighted for Gordon Brown weeks into his premiership by the alleged terrorist attack on Glasgow airport, when it emerged that the suspects included overseas doctors who entered Britain to work in the NHS.

A review led by Homeland Security Minister Admiral Sir Alan West into issues raised by the Glasgow attack has been grappling with one key question: could more be done to identify rogue elements who are apparently well integrated with their local communities?

Which is where, some within the intelligence community insist, access to personal data already held by public bodies - from the Oyster register to public sector employment records - could come in. The debate is not over yet.

The Battlegrounds

Energy Security
As North Sea oil stocks run out, Britain risks increasing reliance on imported gas and oil from volatile regions such as Russia and the Middle East - but what if Russia turned off the gas tap, as it has repeatedly done to Ukraine? The threat is seen as intensifying the case for new nuclear power stations in UK.

China's Monopoly
Rapid industrial growth means that China is desperate for oil, coal, iron ore and minerals and is developing a stranglehold on supplies from some countries. There are concerns about its willingness to trade arms for natural resources with unscrupulous governments, such those of Sudan and Burma.

Water Wars
Global warming could dry up rivers and lakes in regions such as the Nile delta and the Middle East, causing mass human migration and battles for control of remaining water supplies.

Global Poverty
Hunger and economic collapse drives refugees to overwhelm neighbouring countries and triggers immigration surges to West. Hardship can become a recruiting ground for extremism.

Cyber Wars
Electronic aggression involving hacking into computer systems running critical services such as communications, banking or water supply. The main threat is from Russia, China and terrorists.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/16/uksecurity.terrorism/

[Morris]

I have no problem with this.

If you haven't done anything wrong, theres no reason to get into a tizz.

From Orwell, (England Your England)

"But here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official—the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the ‘nice cup of tea’. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above. The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker. It is obvious, of course, that even this purely private liberty is a lost cause. Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, ‘co-ordinated’. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence. "


Lets hope so.