Europe's top human rights court said Britain violated the privacy of two
people by storing their DNA profiles, even though they had not been
convicted of a crime.
In a landmark unanimous decision issued Thursday, the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said "blanket and indiscriminate" lifetime retention of DNA samples from people suspected but not convicted of offences "failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests."
"The retention in question constituted a disproportionate interference
with the applicants' right to respect for private life and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society," the ruling body said in its judgment.
The right to a private life is a protection afforded under the Human Rights Convention, to which Britain is a signatory.
The ruling threatens to undermine Britain's DNA database, which includes
data on over four million people, or more than 5.4 per cent of the U.K.'s population. About 850,000 of the people whose genetic information is stored on the database were charged with recordable" offences carrying potential prison sentences, but were not convicted and do not have criminal records.
James Morton
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