If you are innocent, having your DNA on a database somewhere will not affect you in any way and if in the long run it means that murderers, rapists and child molesters are brought to justice it is worth it. If you child was raped or murdered i suspect those complaining would change their tune

kerry, bournemouth, dorset

THe 16 year old son of a friend was arrested over a vandalism incident at a school.
DNA was taken without parents consent. He was not charged & the parents paid for the school damage.

The DNA will never be removed, neither will the criminal number. This will prevent travel or work in the U.S,

Ross, Bristol, , England

The current law is unfair to the wrongly accused. If Tony Lake wants a national DNA database then he should say so and it can be debated.

Alison, Edinburgh, UK

Retiring next week? Good riddance.

paul, Glasgow,

Under the tories sex crime rates remained steady. Under Labour and their Big Brother approach including the DNA DB sex crimes have more than doubled.
Violent crime has quadrupled.
Robbery doubled.
This to me says the DNA DB has failed and therefore not needed.

Phill, The Wirral, England

Guy Herbert, London, you said, "Well the principle is precisely that "unconvicted former suspects" *are* innocent people." Thank you for that clarification. It is what I was thinking, but I didn't word my comment very clearly.

Simon, Brentwood, UK

The DNA database has many records from innocent people, even children and toddlers. This government is determined to push ahead with their surveillance society and if the European Court manage to stop this, then at last something good would come out of Brussels.

Ros, Surrey,

It appears from the comments that a good many criminals now read.

alan, warks, uk

Whats the new law, 'innocent until the police decide you're guilty' ?

Arthur, Newcastle,

Well the principle is precisely that "unconvicted former suspects" *are* innocent people. In a free country we prosecute crimes, not presumptions about personal character. It is a police-state notion that every suspect is a criminal who just hasn't been caught yet.

Guy Herbert, London, Engalnd

DNA should not be stored unless a person is convicted of a serious offence. DNA samples should be destroyed promptly. Helen of Australia

HELEN, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Please note. The Home Office has admitted to The Sunday Times that in more than 50,000 instances since 2001, DNA samples from crime scenes have resulted in multiple matches on the national database.

Charles Bockett-Pugh, Sandhurst,

If the police were to contain their avaricious desire for our personal details it might give them time to concentrate on burglary and the many other often ignored daily crimes.

Simon Marshland, Bath, UK

This is a good decision. It is to Europe we must increasingly look to safeguard the rights of the individual in this country. We are already vastly over monitored and over regulated.

Paul Padley, Shrivenham, England

Mr Lake is scaremongering - a favourite tactic employed to justify the erosion of freedoms. The risks of failing to detect a tiny percentage of crimes are certainly outweighed by the risks to society as a whole posed by a universal DNA database.

Edwin, Bucharest,

The DNA database is just more Orwellian control.

Sure it can assist in crimes but there are propsals to record everyones DNA.

Just hink what the insurance industry would give to have access , and indeed Iceland has already sold its populations DNA to industry.

but it wouldn't happen here?

Wullie, Luss, Scotland

The statistics say it all if only 2% of the DNA database actually end up with a conviction in court on a subsequent new offence. The EU courts stance is spot on to curtail the excess's of fascists regimes like Nulab and they have obviously learnt from Germany's history even if Blair/Brown didn't.

Mike, Alicante, Spain

The key issue here IS presumption of innocence, which has been abandoned re rape and domestic violence cases. The status quo is defensible given that many unconvicted actually will be guilty and may reoffend: isn't there a case then that EVERYONE should be on the database? They sure won't scrap it.

Steve Moxon, Sheffield,

If someone is arrested they are innocent until proven guilty. If they are not convicted of a crime then their DNA should not be retained on a database. The presumption of innocence should override the usefulness of keeping DNA records because they may possibly help solve a different or old crime.

Donna Walker, Effingham, England

Few people seem to realise just how intrusive the state is into ordinary citizens' lives in the UK - highlighted only this week by the story of councils having unfettered access to innocent people's communications. Britain is not becoming a police state - it IS one already.

B Redfern, Krkso, Slovenia

As a recently retired police officer I strongly disagree with Mr Lake. When a person is arrested for an offence but not convicted, they are presumed innocent in law and their situation should, so far as possible, be restored to that of a person who was never suspected in the first place,

S Foster, Doncaster, UK

I have something of a love-hate relationship with the EU and the idea of europe.

If they strike this threat to our freedom down I will always be grateful

peter, york, uk

This is the sort of issue that tests our belief in the presumption of innocence. We seem to be slipping away from that established principle in practice. It can't be okay for unconvicted former suspects' DNA to be on the database unless it's okay for innocent people's, too.

Simon, Brentwood, UK