Compulsory DNA database - a good idea?

[Monkeytrousers]

I can see from a 'pro' perspective that this would be a very good idea to deter many crimes. Rape, for instance, is known to be an opportunistic crime that goes up when the chance of being caught goes down - in war zones or aread of natural disaster, for example. A dns database would lessen instamce of opportunistic rape then, and maybe even child pornography where consent isn't such a thorny issue.

The major 'con' seems to be that at the moment we live ina liberal democracy, but at some point in future we cxan't be sure that the rule of law will change in line with a more hardline or totalitarian government, and that our DNA will be used to track people for non crimes, but mearly political agitation, etc.

What do you think?

Think it is a dreadful idea. Can't see that it will deter anyone from rape or paedophilia - just make people more careful about hiding/disposing of the bodies. I can't imagine a government in existance who could run it without total fiasco and costing billions. I hate the idea of anyone being able to track me when I am innocent.

But they track you in every other way.

Isn't Britain the most video-surveilled nation on Earth? I hate that but I've done nothing wrong. Why is that ok? When was that decided, or debated.

It (DNA) will just happen.

Agree with callisto. There is also a danger with any database of genetic material that those with certain genes might have life made difficult for them (yes, I know the proposal now is for crime-fighting only, but could we be sure it would stay that way?).

majorstress, I met someone last week who makes a point of photographing the cameras back (OK, pointless, but sometimes one feels a need to cock a snook...)

Once the police have your DNA on record it is very hard to have it removed even if you've committed no crime. I hate this surveillance society we live in. If you want to stop crime put more police on the streets.

This is one of the things which would make me leave the country - not that I'm planning to just yet!

I just don't trust that the police wouldn't use that as the first port of call, and the truth is it's not always right. BUT juries have been shown to put so much weight on dna evidence it's almost impossible to fight dna evidence in court

Hallgerda, the only DNA data that is obtained for this kind of database is repetitive junk DNA- no-one could possibly tell anything about future diseases from it. Even if it became possible to sequence entire genomes on any kind of reasonably economic basis it would take a huge amount of computing power to analyse it. I really don't think it's likely in our lifetimes. I am against it for the reasons outlined.

I'm against it too. There are no guarantees that it wouldn't be used for an evil purpose, further down the line.

Against it on pragmatic and principled grounds. Pragmatism because massive databases of this size are hugely difficult to set up. There will be a stream of 'teething errors' and crises over however many years it takes to set up. And it will cost a hundred times more than they originally estimated. And people will be wrongly suspected and even wrongly convicted - DNA is just another form of forensic evidence and there are plenty of examples of misunderstanding of forensic evidence.

Principled because our legal system rests on the concept of freedom before the law; ie we are free to do anything that is not illegal. We are not all potential suspects and we should not be turned into potential suspects.

Very, very dangerous. Especially taken with the fact we are the most spied-upon population in the whole wide world.