Comment: Henry Porter on DNA and Certainty

Henry Porter at the Guardian reports on new research that DNA samples can be fabricated. He argues that this severely undermines the argument for mass DNA databases of everybody's DNA:

Police officers in the past have been tempted to "fit up" those they believe guilty of a crime. It is easy to imagine how DNA might, in the future, be manufactured to gain a rock solid conviction against a person who was proving inconvenient to the authorities. We may chose to doubt that this will ever happen but legislators must allow for the possibility. Whatever the advances we celebrate today the actual anniversary of the Jeffrey's discovery – it is vital to absorb that DNA evidence is not fool proof.