Protection of Freedoms Act

The Protection of Freedoms Act was adopted by parliament on 1st May 2012.

A summary of the new rules is available here.

In October 2013, the Government confirmed it had completed implementation of the requirements of the Act to remove innocent people's DNA profiles, some children's DNA profiles, and to destroy stored samples. As a result, 1,766,000 DNA profiles taken from innocent adults and children were deleted from the National DNA Database: 480,000 of the DNA profiles removed as part of this programme were taken from children. In addition, 1,672,000 fingerprint records taken from innocent adults and children were deleted from the national fingerprint database.

However, Police National Computer (PNC) records are not being automatically deleted at the same time as people's DNA and fingerprint records (this requirement is not included explicitly in the Act).

You can read about the Act's development on the Protection of Freedoms Bill section of this website.

Resources

↑ Top