Should Everyone Be on the DNA Database?

Matthew Zarb-Cousin thinks so:

As a member of the Labour Party, I would like to argue why I believe a DNA database, where swabs of DNA are taken at birth – and of people coming into the country – is not only fair but also vital.

“Do you want to live in a society where everyone is considered a potential criminal?”, asked Will Self on Question Time last Thursday. The reality, and I hate to break it to you, Will, is that everyone is a potential criminal.

Except not everyone is a potential criminal. This mentality is driving both the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), which is driven by the premise that everyone’s a paedophile unless they can prove they aren’t, and the ID cards project, which presumes everyone’s a terrorist unless they can prove otherwise. But how many paedophiles are there, and how many have used their work to pursue generally horrific aims? Ian Huntley didn’t, so should we all be presumed to be just like Vanessa George when we demonstrably aren’t? And where are all the ‘terrorists’? Could ID cards really prevent atrocities in the UK when they didn’t in Madrid? Zarb-Cousin says it’s ‘fair’ to take the DNA profiles of everyone in the country, rather than just those charged with a crime, but look at how the ISA is turning out in practice after only two months – this bureaucratic presumption of wrongdoing is damaging the social order – families aren’t engaging in school exchange visits, people are already volunteering less, scouting jamborees are being threatened, whilst children and other vulnerable people are not being ‘safeguarded’. How is that fair, and that’s just the workplace – Zarb-Cousin advocates extending that level of suspicion to every single human being in the United Kingdom!

It’s a muddled argument, presupposing that the objection to the National DNA Database is about the database itself; it isn’t. Of course DNA and the national database have a vital role to play in crime detection, but you just need to look at the statistics to prove that holding the DNA profiles of innocent people has brought no benefits. I’m sure the Jacqui Smiths and Alan Johnsons of this world can find one or two cases where retaining profiles has led to one or two successes, but it takes a great deal of hubris to extend the logic of that out across the entire population. New Labour since its arrival has gradually eroded the rule of law, evidence-based policy making and the relationship between the individual and state. Give the state absolute power over our very genetic make-up, particularly a state quite as authoritarian as this one, and reap the whirlwind.

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