Reclaim your DNA

Have you had a DNA sample taken and your profile placed on the National DNA Database? If so, please join our campaign to try and change the law and have yourself removed from the database.

If you have been arrested in England, Wales or Northern Ireland and never cautioned or convicted for any offence, the new Reclaim your DNA website will help you write a letter to the police. To visit it, click here.

GeneWatch believes that only people convicted of serious violent or sexual offences should be kept permanently on the Database. Other DNA profiles should be removed after fixed time periods or when a person is acquitted. We also believe that the DNA samples should not be kept once the DNA profiles used for identification purposes have been obtained from them.

Since 4th December 2008, you can write and ask for your DNA to be destroyed and your records removed in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Marper case.

If you have already written to the Chief Constable, you can now write again, referring to the new legal opinion obtained by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in August 2009.

If you do not believe the police are justified in keeping you on the Database, or if you are concerned about how your record or DNA sample may be misused, you can ask to be removed. We are asking people to write to the Chief Constable of the police force where your DNA was taken requesting that they exercise their power to have you removed from the database. We are also asking that you send a copy of the letter to your MP and or local newspaper to highlight the issue.

GeneWatch cannot provide legal advice on individual cases, but if you wish to make a legal challenge to the retention of your DNA it is important that you seek advice from a lawyer as soon as possible.

Who should I write to and how will they handle my request?

If you are in doubt about whether you are on the NDNAD you have the right to find out what information the police hold about you. You do this by writing to your local police station stating that you are making a 'subject access request' at your local police station. The website of the Information Commissioner's Office has more information about this.
If you already know you are on the Database or have now found out, write to the Chief Constable of the constabulary that arrested you or to which you voluntarily supplied your DNA. See below for list of ideas and arguments to make. You can find a list of UK police forces and their websites here. You should send a copy of the letter to your MP. Please also send a copy to GeneWatch.
If you have written before you can write again and ask for removal in the light of the judgment made by the European Court of Human Rights on 4th December 2008. More information on the case is available here

Official positions and previous cases

Former Home Office Minister, Andy Burnham in response to a PQ on 19th Dec 2005 stated that: "The decision whether to retain or remove a sample is an operational one for the chief constable of the police force which took it." Essentially the law allows for an individual's DNA to be added to the database, but does not make it compulsory to do so, or to keep their records permanently.
However, on 24th April 2006 the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) produced a policy document giving guidance to Chief Constables on this matter. This 'suggested' that removal should only take place in exceptional circumstances and that Chief Constables may need support in making decisions on 'exceptional cases'. ACPO also provided Chief Constables with two sample letters, to deal with requests for removal. This guidance will now have to be re-written in the light of the judgment by the European Court. However, the Government's proposals for new legislation have been widely criticised and have not yet been voted on by parliament.

Since 2006, for the first time in British history, all police records of arrest are now kept indefinitely on the Police National Computer (PNC) unless you can demonstrate an 'exceptional case' for removal of your records. The Retention Guidelines for Nominal Records on the Police National Computer explain the rules on retention.

In summer 2008, the Information Tribunal ruled that this is incompatible with the Data Protection Act and that people with past, spent convictions or cautions for minor offences should have their police records deleted. However, in 2009, the police won an appeal against this decision.

Newspaper articles on individual cases of people seeking removal from the DNA database

DNA: Now it's the police's secret enemy The Daily Mail (4th January 2010)
DNA retention hampers policing The Guardian (31 December 2009)
How I got my genes deleted The Guardian (19 March 2009)
Police order child's DNA to be removed from database Liverpool Daily Post (19 Nov 2008)
Victory for Jimmy Carr's father over police DNA sample - The Daily Mail (4 May 2008)
How to delete your DNA profile - The Register (7 January 2008)
Police told to erase 'irrelevant' crime records - The Times (1 November 2007)
Innocent 'terror techie' purges DNA records - The Register (17 September 2007)
Mother wins battle over innocent boy's crime record - The Telegraph (9 January 2006)
Dad vows fight will go on for daughter's DNA - The Wilmslow Express (25 January 2006)
Mum's anger at DNA sampling - The Hounslow Guardian (10 February 2006)
Battle to wipe son's DNA from database - Cheshunt and Waltham Mercury (3 March 2006)
Teacher wins police DNA battle - BBC News (23 March 2006)
Arrested and DNA tested - for jokingly pinging a bra - Daily Mail (28 July 2006)
Police hold thousands of DNA samples taken from Ulster children - Belfast Telegraph (4 August 2006)
Student handed victory after fingerprint mix-up - Blackpool Gazette (15 August 2006)
Girl's fingerprint records wiped - BBC News Online (9 September 2006)
Fingerprinted and checked for DNA...the ten-year-old bullying victim - The Daily Mail (11 September 2006)

Other sources of information

Grant Shapps - Conservative MP for Welwyn and Hatfield
has been running a campaign to have innocent children removed from the database:
Children off the National DNA Database

Liberty and Privacy International agree that current laws on the DNA Database threaten privacy and human rights and support this campaign.

The Liberal Democrats have proposed a Freedom Bill that would remove innocent people's records from the DNA database.

In January 2010, the Conservatives launched a new campaign to remove innocent people from the DNA database.

Points you might want to make in your letter

The European Court of Human rights has ruled that keeping innocent people's DNA and fingerprints violates Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention.Remind the Chief Constables that it is their discretion/choice and not that of the Government or of ACPO and that they do not have to keep you on the National DNA Database.
If you have not been charged or convicted of any offence, you may wish to argue that:
Keeping innocent people's DNA profiles on a Database permanently is an infringement of fundamental human rights.
There was little discussion in Parliament prior to a vote on this law and it was proposed and adopted without public debate during the first week of the Iraq war.
Keeping innocent people permanently on the database has not noticably increased the likelihood of a crime being successfully detected.
In Scotland, where there has been more consultation and debate, DNA cannot be kept permanently from innocent people. Most people who are acquitted in Scotland get their DNA removed from the Database straight away. In some serious sexual or violent crime cases, DNA can be retained after acquittal in Scotland, but never for longer than 5 years.
You were arrested, but a crime had not actually taken place; you were mistaken for someone else; you were falsely accused by the real perpetrator of the crime; or the police made a wrongful arrest.
You voluntarily gave your DNA but the form you filled in was not explained to you properly or did not give complete information. You now wish to withdraw your consent.
If you have a past conviction for a minor offence you may want to argue that:
Keeping DNA permanently from people convicted of minor offences is excessive. There is no reason to think you might go on to commit the type of crime where DNA evidence might be relevant.
The offence for which you were convicted is no longer considered a crime.
The offence for which you were convicted involved peaceful protest against the Government and retention of your record on the database could be misused by governments in future.
You are concerned that permanent retention of your record might lead to you being unfairly refused a job or visa in the future, or that it will be used to undermine your privacy, for example by investigating who you are related to.
Whether you have been convicted of an offence or not, you may have concerns that:
The database is being used for research purposes. Under the Human Tissue Act you should have to give your consent to genetic research and it is wrong to remove your right to refuse to take part in controversial research.
Keeping DNA samples, which contain unlimited genetic information, is not necessary and only benefits the companies paid to store them. The Human Genetics Commission, which advises the Government on these issues, has said that the samples should be destroyed once the DNA profiles (the string of numbers used for identification purposes) have been obtained from them.
You were not aware that private companies and others would be given access to the NDNAD for genetic research and you have not given your consent to this.

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