There’s an interesting discussion going on at the Radio 4 PM Blog about the impact of the new stop and question powers that the government want to bring in. My concern is particularly on the impact that it will have on the DNA database and I see I am not the only Lib Dem concerned about this today.
If one assumes that the purpose of new stop and questioning powers is to identify, arrest and convict more potential terrorists or just 'ordinary' criminals, then the police will be able to take more DNA and put them on the DNA database.
Some DNA database facts from Lynne Featherstone’s blog:
· 25% of the people on the database innocent of any crime
· In London, 57% of the innocent people on the database are in fact non-white.
· A third of all the black population in England & Wales is already on the database.
And now, Lib Dem Research suggests that in 3 years half of all black men will be on the database whether they have been convicted of a crime or not.
As I've blogged before, the DNA database is racially skewed, to mirror a racial skew in the police’s stop and search/questioning policy. This will eventually mean that an even higher proportion of convicted people are non-white (hence the Lib Dem researched projections).
The obvious inability to identify potential terrorist subjects by sight and therefore the need to use crude indicators based on colour of skin, or length of beard or dress underlines why these things are so pernicious. A leap is made from appearance to behaviour and then, in the UK, it gets hard coded into data on databases.
I consider myself very fortunate to be living in Britain and I love my home, the country and the city I live in but when I think about how we as a nation are the world leaders in compiling databases on our citizens such as the DNA database I hang my head in shame.
"Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security." (Benjamin Franklin)
Showing posts with label DNA Database. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNA Database. Show all posts
Just because I'm paranoid....
Posted in Civil Liberties, DNA Database on by
Well, yes, but just because I may be being paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get us! There I was reading, on the suggestion of the Free Think Blog a perfectly innocent article on free will and neurology and then more came up against the implications of a DNA database that captures innocent people’s DNA.
From the Economist – on their article on neurology and free will.
“At the moment, the criminal law—in the West, at least—is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.
Such disorders are serious pathologies. But the National DNA Database being built up by the British government (which includes material from many innocent people), would already allow the identification of those with milder predispositions to anger and violence. How soon before those people are subject to special surveillance? And if the state chose to carry out such surveillance, recognising that the people in question may pose particular risks merely because of their biology, it could hardly then argue that they were wholly responsible for any crime that they did go on to commit.”
I suppose I’m getting some comfort from the fact that I keep picking up references to the wider implications of this DNA database in the media and so hopefully, it might start to snowball into something, but am I the only person noticing how close we’re getting to Big Brother (and that’s the Orwellian version) here?
From the Economist – on their article on neurology and free will.
“At the moment, the criminal law—in the West, at least—is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.
Such disorders are serious pathologies. But the National DNA Database being built up by the British government (which includes material from many innocent people), would already allow the identification of those with milder predispositions to anger and violence. How soon before those people are subject to special surveillance? And if the state chose to carry out such surveillance, recognising that the people in question may pose particular risks merely because of their biology, it could hardly then argue that they were wholly responsible for any crime that they did go on to commit.”
I suppose I’m getting some comfort from the fact that I keep picking up references to the wider implications of this DNA database in the media and so hopefully, it might start to snowball into something, but am I the only person noticing how close we’re getting to Big Brother (and that’s the Orwellian version) here?
You do have something to fear
Posted in Civil Liberties, DNA Database, Police on by
Two items in the news today have got me back up on my civil liberties soap box; one from the Today programme and one picked up from my reading of someone else’s discarded Metro on the Victoria Line but both about Government databases.
At 6.30am this morning there was concern around the fact that everybody’s medical records were going to be put on the national NHS Patients Records database for all health professionals to see and the only way you could have your personal information excluded from this process was to plead that you would suffer considerable ‘emotional distress’ – although whether that is more or less than the amount of emotional distress required to explain why you would have emotional distress, I don’t know. All getting a bit ‘yes, minister’ around here….
Or at least, if it was the slightest bit funny, it would.
The second is about the DNA database and the numbers of ‘innocent’ people on it. Having googled the whole subject, I have discovered (from Lynne Featherstone’s website) that not only are 25% of the people on the database innocent but that in London, 57% of the innocent people on the database are in fact non-white. A third of all the black population in England & Wales is already on the database.
These databases, at first thought, which might be the only one that most of us give them, might seem to be attempting a general good. After all a database is only recording fact, isn’t it? And after all, in both cases the innocent have nothing to fear do they?
But it’s not that simple – already we can see that the DNA database is becoming racially skewed, to mirror a racial skew in the police’s stop and search and questioning policy. It is also at risk of being used for research purposes to racially profile suspects DNA. If the DNA were being collected in a random fashion it would not be as potentially socially explosive.
Ok, as one contributor to the BBC message board put it today, so what if someone over the other side of the country can see I’ve got a problem with my leg or my kidneys? But what happens when a record gives an indication of a more socially loaded condition, such as alcoholism, what then? What if the concerns around security do come true, what then?
If information is power then we are giving more and more power to government employees and governments and fundamentally changing the relationship between the state and the citizen.
Yet, as Shami Chakrabarti points out time and again, this is something we are sleep walking into. Why do so many of my non political friends not care, or feel slightly uncomfortable about it but shrug and accept it? I think, mainly, because they don’t think it will ever happen to them. And just like they can’t imagine ever needing to flee their country and claim asylum or not being able to get a visa for anywhere in the world they may choose to visit; they can’t imagine getting on the wrong side of a database.
“First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me”
Martin Niemöller
I’ve probably rambled a bit and tried to get too many ideas into this blog and perhaps when I’ve been going for years I might be able to control my desire to get everything out at once. It is something gets me really exercised, as you can probably tell.
At 6.30am this morning there was concern around the fact that everybody’s medical records were going to be put on the national NHS Patients Records database for all health professionals to see and the only way you could have your personal information excluded from this process was to plead that you would suffer considerable ‘emotional distress’ – although whether that is more or less than the amount of emotional distress required to explain why you would have emotional distress, I don’t know. All getting a bit ‘yes, minister’ around here….
Or at least, if it was the slightest bit funny, it would.
The second is about the DNA database and the numbers of ‘innocent’ people on it. Having googled the whole subject, I have discovered (from Lynne Featherstone’s website) that not only are 25% of the people on the database innocent but that in London, 57% of the innocent people on the database are in fact non-white. A third of all the black population in England & Wales is already on the database.
These databases, at first thought, which might be the only one that most of us give them, might seem to be attempting a general good. After all a database is only recording fact, isn’t it? And after all, in both cases the innocent have nothing to fear do they?
But it’s not that simple – already we can see that the DNA database is becoming racially skewed, to mirror a racial skew in the police’s stop and search and questioning policy. It is also at risk of being used for research purposes to racially profile suspects DNA. If the DNA were being collected in a random fashion it would not be as potentially socially explosive.
Ok, as one contributor to the BBC message board put it today, so what if someone over the other side of the country can see I’ve got a problem with my leg or my kidneys? But what happens when a record gives an indication of a more socially loaded condition, such as alcoholism, what then? What if the concerns around security do come true, what then?
If information is power then we are giving more and more power to government employees and governments and fundamentally changing the relationship between the state and the citizen.
Yet, as Shami Chakrabarti points out time and again, this is something we are sleep walking into. Why do so many of my non political friends not care, or feel slightly uncomfortable about it but shrug and accept it? I think, mainly, because they don’t think it will ever happen to them. And just like they can’t imagine ever needing to flee their country and claim asylum or not being able to get a visa for anywhere in the world they may choose to visit; they can’t imagine getting on the wrong side of a database.
“First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me”
Martin Niemöller
I’ve probably rambled a bit and tried to get too many ideas into this blog and perhaps when I’ve been going for years I might be able to control my desire to get everything out at once. It is something gets me really exercised, as you can probably tell.
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