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DNA pioneer rails against UK database
Source: Agencies |
September 11, 2009, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
LIKE so many great discoveries, it was an accident.
British scientist Alec Jeffreys realized 25 years ago that individuals have "DNA fingerprints," unique patterns of genetic material that can be used to identify them. The discovery has solved thousands of crimes, put murderers behind bars, split and reunited families - and launched a fierce debate about privacy and human rights.
On the anniversary of his discovery yesterday, Jeffreys worried that police are using a database of DNA samples taken from suspects to brand innocent people "future criminals."
Britain's DNA database is the largest in the world, containing genetic profiles of more than 5 million people. Samples are taken from everyone arrested for a crime - and the data is usually retained even if the person is acquitted or freed without charge.
Jeffreys, 59, said about 800,000 innocent people were on the database, raising fears of "discrimination, breach of genetic privacy, stigmatization - a whole host of issues."
"Innocent people do not belong on that database," Jeffreys, a geneticist at the University of Leicester, England, told the BBC. "Branding them as future criminals is not a proportionate response in the fight against crime."
Jeffreys and his colleagues made their discovery by accident on September 10, 1984, while researching inherited diseases. They developed a way of isolating bits of DNA and turning them into X-ray images. Looking at the first such images, from three members of one family, he realized the individual patterns were different.
British scientist Alec Jeffreys realized 25 years ago that individuals have "DNA fingerprints," unique patterns of genetic material that can be used to identify them. The discovery has solved thousands of crimes, put murderers behind bars, split and reunited families - and launched a fierce debate about privacy and human rights.
On the anniversary of his discovery yesterday, Jeffreys worried that police are using a database of DNA samples taken from suspects to brand innocent people "future criminals."
Britain's DNA database is the largest in the world, containing genetic profiles of more than 5 million people. Samples are taken from everyone arrested for a crime - and the data is usually retained even if the person is acquitted or freed without charge.
Jeffreys, 59, said about 800,000 innocent people were on the database, raising fears of "discrimination, breach of genetic privacy, stigmatization - a whole host of issues."
"Innocent people do not belong on that database," Jeffreys, a geneticist at the University of Leicester, England, told the BBC. "Branding them as future criminals is not a proportionate response in the fight against crime."
Jeffreys and his colleagues made their discovery by accident on September 10, 1984, while researching inherited diseases. They developed a way of isolating bits of DNA and turning them into X-ray images. Looking at the first such images, from three members of one family, he realized the individual patterns were different.
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