I was reading Stephs blog the other day and read her post on DNA and Civil liberties I commented over there but thought I'd reproduce it here for furhter comment.

The debate stemmed from the comments of Lord Justice Sedley who called for everyone to be put on the national DNA database including foreign visitors. On the face of it it seems like a difficult argument to resist, who can really argue effectively against measures that would ( if we are to believe in the science) make the identification of perpetrators of rape, child killing and murder so much easier.

To be honest if I truly trusted those who governed me, if I hadn’t bore witness to a long list of civil abuses of power in my short time on this planet, if I hadn’t read books like 1984 and subsequently seen parallels in my own everyday life, if there truly was some means of ensuring that my very personal essence and blueprint, god given, biological, non political, non partisan, naturally created material exclusive to me could only ever be used to detect murderous or sexually abusive or violent crime then, perhaps, just perhaps I could well live with it. How can anyone seriously argue that a technology that actually identifies the perpetrator of a crime, that could well be commited again on others within our community, endangering the lives of our sisters and brothers, daughers and sons not be used?

I certainly can’t, not without being mocked and derided as an irresponsible idiot; yet like so many others have identified this isn’t what people have issue with. People have a serious issue with trust, they simply don't (rightly so too) trust those who’d be entrusted to ensure it was used in the right way. Data would be leaked and sold and companies would use this data in sneaky underhand ways. Forget the data protection act, that’s circumvented and ignored daily, its an old clunky mechanism that just cant keep up and is poorly policed.

People would be be right not to trust that cold hearted rationale that would for examples sake, take the chance and probability out from say, medical or life insurance. Companies like these would jump on arguments that say that open disclosure of ones DNA profile should be a requirement of being accepted into a policy. It would be used to develop multiple policies tailored specifically towards certain types of ailements. People would be frightened to the ends of the earth with probabilities that said, your gene profile shows you have a predisposition to cancer or (insert any other number of possible nasty later life diseases) and would be expected to pay the appropriate amount. Society would become eugenicised by a system that made living with a later possibility an economic burden. People would be expected to submit a ‘clean’ DNA profile to prospective employers or life partners, who’d want to knowingly pass on a death sentence or disability to their yet to be had offspring? What company would want to invest thousands of pounds in a person who might be dieing of leukaemia some 4 years down the line?

No, DNA profiling needs to be used for research into gene therapies and stuff that contributes to the greater good without damaging or spoiling the lives of those who live today and tommorrow and thats that nothing else, ever.As much as it pains me to say I really must be satisfied with what we have today (crime detection wise) and live with the consequences of its shortcomings. I think the law as it stands today is simply ill equipped to deal with the pandoras box of issues that would stem from such a policy. I relly dont want to live a life in a society that legislates reactively. Put some very solid, cast iron , irreversible protective measures in place 1st, then I might, just might have a second look. Not today though, no way.