National DNA database

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MoonPig

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Was having a discussion about this with a colleague at work today about how it would assist with policing but also the negative aspects on how it would be misused. To cut a long story short we couldn`t come to an agreement on where we stood on the issue.
Should this be compulsary and DNA taken at birth or is it a breach of privacy and Big Brother syndrome stepped up to an unacceptable level?
 
Totally behind having something like this. Think how many crimes could be solved by having a full DNA record on file?

And those that would not take place because there would be no getting away with it so easily.
 
DNA technology woudl have to seriously improve

Whilst it woudl be nice to believe what teh tabloid press suggest about eth infallability of DNA technology, it has a worrying high false positive rate with current techniques, and the terrible misinterpretation of so-called "expert witnesses" of statistical data would mean this is a far from reliable technique at present. Improve the reliability, and there might be a point here, but i must admit for the general population i think this is a move to far; for criminals i might have a different view

For anyone using a Ping G20 driver i woudl say it is compulsory ;)
 
Homer , you as a medical man must have some doubts about the reliability of this method ?

Run a standard DNA test, and there are tens of thousands, if not more, with equivalence in a country the size of UK, without even taking into account false positive, sampling and testing errors and interpretaion errors ?

There have been some extremely worrying high profile prosecutions in teh past decade which have been overtruned at appeal for the most basic of flaws in interpretation of results.

This in not some magicaally foolproof technique
 
Homer , you as a medical man must have some doubts about the reliability of this method ?

Run a standard DNA test, and there are tens of thousands, if not more, with equivalence in a country the size of UK, without even taking into account false positive, sampling and testing errors and interpretaion errors ?

There have been some extremely worrying high profile prosecutions in teh past decade which have been overtruned at appeal for the most basic of flaws in interpretation of results.

This in not some magicaally foolproof technique
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"Medical man" you mean NHS pen-pusher, ha ha ha.
 
"Medical man" you mean NHS pen-pusher, ha ha ha.
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You have to say the guy knows me!

I think that whilst there are still potential issues with DNA, as time goes on and science and technology improves thevalidity of DNA will become ever harder to discount. By starting a national database at birth, say for arguments sake in 2015, by the time some of those are 20 in 2035 and in trouble with the police for serious offences (and lets be honest some will be) their DNA will be at hand and must surely lead to quicker detection rates and prosecutions.

I'm not saying it is a failsafe scheme and my biggest concern is the security of the records kept especially in light of Japanese military hacking etc but given the principal that the DNA was taken and stored safely I'm for it
 
Strongly oppose. I think some people watch too much CSI.

DNA sampling and analysis techniques not sufficiently reliable, and false positives occur. Also would make it easier for someone to be framed, either by a cop or another dodgy party. Some police forces in the UK already have a reputation for fitting people up. Then of course you cannot trust Govt with storage and IT security either.
 
I was in favour of ID cards, and it being compulsory to carry them (still am) but I'm not so sure about DNA. Not so much that is not sufficiently reliable as yet but more that I doubt their ability to store data securely.
 
Why not have everyone microchipped at birth too? No more need for ID cards, passports etc and you can have all your medical records stored on it so in the event of an accident all details will be at hand. Whilst you are at it you could store all the person's criminal records on it. :(
 
I don't know much about the technology behind it - but what I do know is that the data is somewhat statistical and needs to be interpretated by a person and that leads to the possibility of human error - thus the effects of a busy civil servent who looks at the DNA and perhaps sends out a police crew - would be a disaster.

Also - where does it stop? DNA shopping in lieu of Visa cards? A state with 100 police men as they no longer need to be a deterrent to crimes? What happens when there is a confused sample - wrong label on an inital sample?

Loads of possible problems, however, I agree there should be some sort of simple control measure to help prevent crimes - I really don't care if a satellite follows me all day - I don't commit crimes (but I do hit plenty of bad golf shots) so I have nothing to hide (well I done 23 in a 20 this morning :-O ).
 
Why not make it an RFID chip so you can be tracked wherever you go?
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Awesome, then when the details are sold to all kinds of commercial companies life will be much better!

Just think, you won't need car keys any more, the car will be programmed to your RFID tag, and will only start when you're in the car!
 
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