Comment: The Case for a Universal, DNA Database

There's an interesting Op-Ed piece on the NYTimes.com site today responding to Obama's apparent endorsement of a national DNA database to include profiles of everyone arrested, whether found guilty or not. The author, Michael Seringhaus, make the case for that the national DNA database ought to hold profiles on everybody not just those who are arrested.

He argues that at present, DNA databases are 'fraught' with problems of discrimination, the disproportionate bias towards racial minorities already having prompted one commentator to dub it 'Jim Crow's database'. This is exacerbated by the use of profiling methods and 'familial DNA search' - searching among the relatives of partial DNA matches as potential suspects when full matches cannot be found.

Instead, he recommends the far more just solution of placing everybody's DNA profile on the database:

Your sensitive genetic information would be safe. A DNA profile distills a person’s complex genomic information down to a set of 26 numerical values, each characterizing the length of a certain repeated sequence of “junk” DNA that differs from person to person. Although these genetic differences are biologically meaningless — they don’t correlate with any observable characteristics — tabulating the number of repeats creates a unique identifier, a DNA “fingerprint.”

The genetic privacy risk from such profiling is virtually nil, because these records include none of the health and biological data present in one’s genome as a whole. Aside from the ability in some cases to determine whether two individuals are closely related, DNA profiles have nothing sensitive to disclose.

He thinks this would be relatively easy to administer, requiring only the introduction of a mandatory sample taking either at birth, or as prerequisites to a drivers licence or social security card. Samples taken at this point would be used only to produce one of these 26 numbered profiles, after which they would be destroyed. I think there may still be objections to make here, however, that derive simply from the administrative scale of the proposal. It seems plausible to me to worry about DNA samples being taken for the purposes of creating a profile being destroyed in a timely fashion and being kept securely in the interim. I can well believe that the process would be secure and efficient much of the time, for much of the country, but if the proposal is to take samples from every single citizen I suspect its inevitable that there will be some malfunction of the sort that has become all too familiar - the information is placed on a CD or laptop that is left on a train, or some disgruntled employee decides to start selling the information on.

One part of his argument I find even more interesting is what he has to say about how this would change people's attitudes to the security and integrity of such a database:

Since every American would have a stake in keeping the data private and ensuring that only the limited content vital to law enforcement was recorded, there would be far less likelihood of government misuse than in the case of a more selective database.

I'm sympathetic to this line of thought, but I'm not wholly convinced that it would change people's priorities as much as Seringhaus thinks: 'everybody' has been quite vulnerable to clumsy losing of private government held data on previous occasions without it turning into an enormous issue. Furthermore, malfunctions in the security of such a system might easily be localised to particular areas or sectors of the community. For example, suppose that the function of generating profiles becomes the responsibility of those issuing driving licenses or birth certificates and that these are matters for local authorities. Some will fulfil this function much better than others and thus, the security of the DNA may be much lower in areas where these local authorities perform poorly. In such a case a majority could remain unconcerned about the risk the policy poses to a minority.

News: Biometrics to be Used to Identify 'Outsiders' in Afghanistan

From the Sunday Times: in Afghanistan biometrics such as fingerprints, retina scans or DNA tests are being proposed as a means to draw up "gated communities" in which outsider 'rebels' can be swiftly identified. In Basra, patrolling US soldiers are being issued with iPODs with a list of all local people.

Brigadier James Cowan, the new commander of British forces in Afghanistan, gave an interview to the Sunday Times in which he emphasised the importance of reassuring the local population of UK and US ability to provide security.

For the brigadier it is all about challenging the Taliban’s rule of fear: “What you have to do is create communities where people wish to be separate from the enemy because they have the confidence to be separate from them.”

Cowan’s staff have embarked on a huge exercise known as “human terrain mapping”. It involves not only delineating tribal boundaries, but also family networks, land ownership and all the possible grievances that can be exploited by the Taliban.

News: New Policy on UK DNA Retention

From the Guardian: Police have announced that they are to retain the DNA of those released without charge. Home Office Ministers say they want a 6 year limit (having previously sought a 12 year limit) for retaining profiles. Ministers are also advocating indefinite retention of those arrested on suspicion of terrorism or other national security provisions. Those convicted of any offence remain on the database for life. The Tories say they would implement the Scottish system whereby the profile of those unconvicted of any offence is destroyed on release from prison:

The national DNA database is already the largest in the world, with the profiles of 4.5 million people already recorded. They include 850,000 DNA profiles of people who have never been charged with or convicted of a crime. The need to find a new regime follows a landmark ruling in the S and Marper case by the European court of human rights, which ruled that the Home Office's current regime of "blanket and indefinite" retention of innocent people's DNA was illegal.

Comment: This Week on 'the Surveillance State'

There was a really interesting discussion of the DNA Database and the prospect of the 'Surveillance State' on UK politics show This Week last night. The show's hosts include MPs Diane Abbott (Labour) and Michael Portillo (Conservative).

Nobody wanted to defend the increased use of surveillance, and the (to my mind crucial) issue of the chilling effect on civic engagement got an airing, but what I found really interesting was the analysis of politician's (lack of) role in this process. In particular Abbott focused on the fact that very few of the measures discussed have actually had a chance to be debated by the legislature, while recent ministers in the executive see their role as arguing for government policy rather than running their government departments, leaving career civil servants a lot of influence over day to day governance.

Portillo makes another interesting claim: politicians tend to be risk averse, and thus much of what looks like an aggressive pursuit of 'a surveillance state' is rather politicians wishing to avoid any possibility of criticism or sense of liability for occasions where a criminal can't be caught who might have been with the help of CCTV, or the DNA database say. It is because the argument against increases in surveillance is more difficult to make, that Britain has drifted in this direction, rather than because this necessarily reflects the politicians' assessments of the principles involved.

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.

News: Italy to Create National DNA Database

EDRI reports that after a long process the Italian Parliament has passed law 85 ratifying the Prum Convention and creating the legal basis for an Italian National DNA Database. EDRI is scathing, however, about the lack of safeguards built into the legislation. Particularly of note:

• "Lacks any general provision that would oblige all the responsible parties to adopt serious and adequate security measures against unauthorized access, data tampering, and illegal handling of data and information."
• It says "nothing about the need for a properly established chain of custody...[making it]...impossible for a "planted" or "altered" sample to be used."
• Nothing is said "about the effect of an improperly managed chain of custody on admissibility of the samples as evidence in Court"
• "Law enforcement officers can access the NDNA database without prior authorisation from the prosecutor or the judge that is responsible for the investigation involving the sample or profile in question (under Italian law, law enforcement bodies are under the direction and control of the public prosecutor). Since the article is silent about the matter, only future court decisions will determine whether prior authorization is needed to access the NDNA database, thus leaving wide open a window of several years in which "anything can happen".
• Requires "neither the positive identification of the personnel accessing the NDNA database and material in the central lab, nor the secure logging of access to and activity involving the profile and sample."
• Does not "clearly identify who is in charge of ordering the destruction of samples and profiles."
  
• Punishment for a public officer "that communicates or uses data and information without authorization, or for purposes other than those stipulated specifically in the law" is negligible: "a jail term of between one and three years...[which in practice could be reduced to]... "a final jail term of less than six months that could be avoided by simply paying a fine."
• By leaving white collar crime profiles out the legislation opens the door to the database skewing, say, the racial balance of future crime statistics.