Wiping of DNA and fingerprint records 'puts public safety at risk'

Hundreds of DNA and fingerprint records that could have been held for national security reasons in England and Wales have been deleted, a report reveals.

Rightly or wrongly I believe that everyone should have their DNA taken at birth, would certainly help convicting criminals in the future.

I know it can be argued that it is an infringement of your liberties but we must react to the time we are living in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35783475

With a bar code tattoo and RDF chip that would be really cool

No Way!

The authorities should concentrate on catching criminals,
not tracking and persecuting the innocent.

I have come round to being in favour of an intelligent ID card. Whether our Civil Service has enough intelligence to achieve such a thing is something that I am less sure about, but surely we can do better than relying on the utility companies' billing departments to tell us who is who?

Your missus could keep track of you Keith with a couple of clicks of the mouse

Like you Andrew I have eventually come round to the idea that ID cards would be a handy tool for a host of things, twenty years ago I was dead against them but you have to move with the times.

With DNA and ID cards I am working on the basis that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.

• Your DNA might be catalogued for future harvesting by the EU, if we don't vote out.

• ID cards might have some benefits, but how long before the information is misused, and there is a mandatory £100 fine for leaving it at home.

The fact is we have nothing in the fight against crime that is as conclusive as DNA evidence, makes a huge difference to criminal court cases.

I do not believe for one moment that my DNA is anywhere where I have not been.

In that case why do criminals not use the above in their defence, after all you are saying anyone's DNA could be anywhere?

I look at like this, you could probably count on one hand the people who are in jail because of DNA evidence which was wrong.

It's been known for criminals to go gather a cigarette butt from a public ashtray and leave it the crime scene to provide misleading dna evidence. Im not a fan of a national dna or fingerprint database. Smacks too much of big brother to me. I would accept an identity card but would be worried about it being misused. In the USA for example plenty of agencies require your social security number when they have absolutely no business having it.

I'm quite sure that there are more criminals behind bars now because of DNA.

Sounds to me like you are dead against it being used in court.