Britain’s DNA database is unquestionably one of the largest (if not the largest) such database in the world. Its tremendous size is due in part to the blatant flaunting of EU court rulings (which as part of the EU Britain has agreed to abide by) regarding the storage of DNA records of innocent individuals. Instead of immediately purging DNA of innocent parties from the database the UK maintains those records for six years. According to a new report by the government’s advisory board on the development of human genetics, police in the UK may be abusing the country’s lax DNA rules to ensure that the database contains information on whomever they wish.

During its investigation, the commission found that it has now become routine practice to take a DNA sample at the time of arrest (rather than after a conviction), guaranteeing the samples availability for at least six years. In fact, the commission found evidence that officers will arrest potential subjects on any grounds just to obtain DNA samples. In some cases the arrestees are not even formally charged with a crime. According to data released by the home secretary there are nearly one million DNA profiles belonging to innocent individuals in the database. While innocent citizens currently make up only 20% of the database (a figure that is alarmingly high), the data suggest that figure will continue to rise unless some form of oversight is put into place to prevent this abuse from continuing.

Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims [via Boing Boing]