The entire UK population and every visitor to Britain should be put on the national DNA database, a top judge said today.
Lord Justice Sedley, one of England's most experienced appeal court judges, described the country's current system as "indefensible".
"We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, then your DNA is on permanent record. If you haven't, it isn't ... that's broadly the picture," Sir Stephen Sedley told the BBC.
"We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, then your DNA is on permanent record. If you haven't, it isn't."
Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
....but don't worry....
He said that expanding the existing database to cover the whole population had "serious but manageable implications".
But he warned that putting everybody's DNA on file should be "for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention".
Oh good, there's a politically correct angle...
Figures compiled from Home Office statistics and census data show almost 40% of black men have their DNA profile on the database. That compares with 13% of Asian men and 9% of white men.
Keith Jarrett, president of the Black Police Association, said the current system was "untenable" and backed the call for a universal database.
"You can't have a system where so many black youths who have done nothing wrong are perhaps going to the police station for elimination from a crime and find that their DNA is on the database," he said.
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