And that's most certainly the attitude that the government will take in relation to a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR unanimously passed judgement in favour of DNA and fingerprints not being retained if persons had not been charged or indeed acquitted of committing a crime. Their decision was based on the fact that the actions of the police violated Article 8, the person's right to respect for private life. And of course the Home Secretary Ms Smith rolled out the usual utterances post-verdict, "disappointed with the verdict" and that, "the existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgement".
We have long held that the police are wrong to retain the details of innocent people. Indeed the current DNA database contains the details of some 4.1million people, of which 730,000 people were never charged with any offence. And then there are the children (though some have obviously committed crimes): more than a million under 16-year olds are now on there as well. Of course to err is human, but to retain the details of the innocent merely presumes that they are guilty of some, as yet, uncommitted crime. This ECHR's ruling is welcome (although we shouldn't have to rely on them), but more needs to be done to hold back this tide of totalitarianism.
It may not be the conventional view, but I regard this government is truly socialist – which is reflected in the way it has viewed and treated the realm of privacy. It has pushed back the boundaries and assumed that all we do, know and hold dear, is really theirs. To them we are nothing more than state agents. We should not be surprised to see that this ruling will be ignored and new legislation will be introduced that comes up with more disingenuous reasoning as to why our DNA are belongs to them!
