European court makes ruling on DNA rights

Recent cases solved by DNA
Police, however, pointed to recent cases solved by using DNA.

Prosecutors used DNA evidence this year to convict a man with the murders of five prostitutes in a series of slayings that shocked Britain.

Chris Sims, a forensics specialist from Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers, said 200,000 DNA samples were retained from 2001 to 2005 from people charged but not convicted of offenses.

"Of these, about 8,500 profiles of individuals have been linked with crime scene profiles involving nearly 14,000 offenses, including 114 murders, 55 attempted murders, 116 rapes, 68 sexual offenses, 119 aggravated burglaries and 127" drug cases, he said.

The core complaint to the European court centered on retaining DNA, not collecting it to solve crimes.

"The court was struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention in England and Wales," it said in its ruling. "The data in question could be retained irrespective of the nature or gravity of the offense with which the individual was originally suspected or of the age of the suspected offender."

Some nations destroy samples
Britain's current policy is to retain samples until the individual dies or reaches 100 years old. Scotland, which has its own legislature, destroys DNA samples taken during criminal investigations that are dropped.

DNA samples are also destroyed upon acquittal in Finland, Germany and Sweden.

The U.S. government announced plans this year to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency. It also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not — a departure from current practice that limits DNA collection to convicted felons.

If a person is arrested but not convicted, they can ask the Justice Department to destroy the sample.

In France, police can take DNA samples from people before they are formally charged and those samples can be kept for 25 years. People acquitted or not charged can ask to be removed from the database but it's "a complex process," said Jeanne Bossi of the CNIL, France's independent privacy watchdog.

'Presumption of innocence'
A key part of the European court's ruling said people "were entitled to the presumption of innocence."

Privacy International said the ruling provides a benchmark for collecting data from innocent people — a ruling that could challenge Britain's plans for a database containing DNA samples of children, for a national identity register and for storing sensitive personal information such as financial or health details.

"The entire legal underpinning of Britain's surveillance state has now collapsed," said Simon Davies with Privacy International.

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