DNA fingerprints of people who have not been convicted of a crime should be removed from the national database, Britain’s most influential ethical think-tank recommended yesterday.

In a report that is highly critical of the Government’s approach to forensic use of genetic information, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics found it unacceptable for the police to keep DNA records from victims of crime, witnesses and suspects who are later acquitted or never charged.

The panel of scientists, philosophers, criminologists and lawyers also urged ministers to drop proposals to allow the police to take and store DNA from people suspected of less serious crimes, such as minor traffic offences and littering.

It rejected the idea of storing the genetic profile of every citizen, and recommended changes to the way that DNA evidence is presented in court.

Police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can take DNA fingerprints from anybody arrested on suspicion of a recordable offence – a list that includes all serious crimes that might warrant a prison sentence.

The information can be stored indefinitely, and potentially matched with samples at crime scenes, even if the suspect is innocent. In March, Downing Street suggested extending this to people arrested for nonrecordable offences, which are invariably minor.

DNA taken from victims and witnesses to separate it from suspects’ samples at crime scenes can also be added to the database with their permission, and there is no way they can have it removed at a later date.

Carole McCartney, of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Leeds, the project manager for the report, said: “There was no convincing evidence we could see that storing DNA from people not convicted of an offence has any impact on crime detection rates.”

The report said that DNA should be stored only if there is a conviction, as happens in most European countries. An exception would be made only for serious violent and sexual offences.

Samples could still be taken from people who are arrested and stored until the police investigation was complete. Without a conviction, however, samples would have to be destroyed. Victims or witnesses who agreed to have their DNA stored should be allowed to remove it at any time.

Inclusion on the database can place innocent people under suspicion, the report concluded. “My local off-licence was recently subject to an armed robbery,” Dr McCartney said. “My DNA will be all over the place, but I’m not actually a criminal, I’m just a chocolate-eating wine drinker.”

The report advised that information from under18s should not be stored unless there was a good reason, such as a conviction for murder. At the moment, genetic fingerprints from about 750,000 under18s are stored.

While the panel had no ethical objection to a national database, including everybody’s DNA profile, it found that any benefits would be “disproportionate” to set-up costs, estimated at more than £700 million.

“We don’t think the infringement to personal liberty and privacy would be significantly outweighed by the benefits to society,” Dr McCartney said.

Professor Sir Bob Hepple, QC, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge and chairman of the Nuffield council, said that while DNA evidence has been a huge advance in crime detection and prevention, it must be handled with care.

“We need only think of public concern about the McCann case to realise there can be doubts about the science,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: “The database has revolutionised the way the police can protect the public through securing more convictions from around 45,000 matches per year. Inclusion does not signify a criminal record.”

Copy codes

— DNA fingerprinting involves recording genetic markers, known as short tandem repeats, as 20 two-digit numbers

— The probability of a chance match of all 20 numbers is about one in a million

— The national DNA database holds about four million samples, more than 6 per cent of the population. It holds more than 264,000 crime scene samples

— In 2005-06, 715,239 individual samples and 68,774 crime-scene samples were added

Source: Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Home Office

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