Friday, July 10th, 2009
The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has contracted IBM to build a database to support the Government’s switch to biometric passports.IBM will also provide a replacement for the UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint System (IAFS) which holds biometrics collected from visa applicants under a 7 year contract.
The projects will lay the foundations for the UK ID card programme.
James Hall, Chief Executive of the Identity and Passport Service, said, “This contract will provide a secure database for storing facial and fingerprint images for the next generation of biometric passports and will support the delivery of the National Identity card.”
As Computer Weekly has previously reported, the UK passport and national identity card programmes have effectively been merged. Passport application fees could rise to as much as £200 to support the project.
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IBM to build UK fingerprints database
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Saturday, June 13th, 2009
In London the Met police have been rounding up and arresting children as young as ten who have committed no crime, for the purpose of getting their DNA on record. A FOI request has revealed that in 2008, police in the Camden area arrested and took DNA samples from 386 under-eighteens in a practice they describe as a “long-term crime prevention strategy”. This big fishing expedition will furnish the UK database on children with DNA records which will be held for six years or until the kid turns eighteen.
The European Court Of Human Rights has come into conflict with the Home Office over the extent of British plans for a National ID Database, which stores DNA data amongst other biometric details. In December 2008 at the ECHR in Strasbourg a panel of seventeen judges unanimously condemned British powers to hold DNA data of all arrestees indefinitely - and regardless of the seriousness of the alleged crime - as ‘blanket and indiscriminate’. The judges ruled that some 857,000 innocent people should have their DNA data deleted. The Home Office is fobbing the ECHR off by only slightly watering down their plans and will still store samples of those arrested (but not convicted) for serious crimes for twelve years, and keep DNA data six years for those arrested (but not convicted) of minor offences. Those who are convicted will have their DNA information held indefinitely.
The National Identity Register (See SchNEWS 466) and the Children’s Act 2004 – which saw the creation of a database for every child in the country (See SchNEWS 452) are just two components of the grand Neo-Labour vision for an Orwellian British state, and no doubt the Tories will be happy to carry on the good work if they get in.
* www.no2id.net www.privacyinternational.org
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The great big DNA database fishing expedition
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Thursday, May 14th, 2009
Speaking at a conference in London organised by the Information Commissioner’s Office, he emphasised the need for a new consultation on the appropriate limits of data sharing.
This follows the government’s retreat from its plans, contained in clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, to make it easier for public bodies to share people’s personal data.
In response to a question on whether the government plans to revisit the proposal, Straw said: “It was not done with the wrong intent, but the way it came out was unacceptable and the powers proposed were too wide, so we withdrew it.
“We will not just slip something new in; we will have a proper process. There’s no point in a new measure without a proper consultation process.”
In his speech, Straw defended the role of data collection and sharing, citing its potential for fighting crime, supporting healthcare and making services more accessible for the public. But he said there is a need for a public debate on the limits of data sharing.
“We have to agree on whether the benefits of data sharing will be worthwhile in respect to individuals’ privacy and the cost to the taxpayer,” he said.
He also countered some of the criticisms that have been made of the government’s record on data retention and surveillance. He claimed that surveillance by the authorities was more prevalent and more lightly regulated in the 1970s than now, and that the government is seeking an appropriate balance in areas such as the use of CCTV.
There have been vociferous criticisms over the government’s use of the National DNA Database, especially following its recent response to a European Court of Human Rights ruling that it is illegal to retain the profiles of people arrested but then proved innocent. The government has declined to drop the policy but said it will dispose of the profiles after 12 years.
When challenged from the floor of the conference, Straw claimed he would have no objection if details of his DNA were kept on the database for that period.
He also said that the development of technology over the past few years has created new challenges in the areas of data protection and freedom of information.
“The whole of the Freedom of Information Act was predicated on the idea of paper files,” he said. “That technological change alone, and the frightening power of computing that everybody can now see, aligned to the greatly increased demand for information, has placed the information commissioner at the heart of public life. It has made it one of the most demanding positions in the UK.”
GC News
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Government may renew data sharing plans
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Friday, April 24th, 2009
It is cost rather than privacy concerns that will save us from Labour’s megalomaniac surveillance schemes – a point underlined this morning when David Cameron was interviewed on the Today programme. With the vast choice of public expenditure open to him, he would single out only the identity card scheme and the children’s database ContactPoint as definite targets for immediate cuts.
There are many more savings to be made. Earlier this year, I and a couple of researchers started to calculate the costs of the database state and came up with a total of about £35bn from published figures. The Rowntree Trust followed with a report that claimed that £16bn was spent each year on IT schemes and that spending plans over the next five years amounted to £100bn.
So we are talking very big figures indeed, although no one really knows how much the surveillance state will cost. When you confront civil servants like Sir David Varney who is in charge of the transformational government project, which will make all information about individuals available to all departments and agencies, they say that the savings will pay for the scheme.
But recent investigations by the Times and Computer Weekly showed that the overrun on large-scale IT projects totals £18.6bn. For instance, the cost of the NHS Spine – a controversial plan to computerise all patients’ records – has risen from £2.3bn in three years to £12.7bn, and the system still is not working.
Here are some figures:
ContactPoint
The projected cost of the database, which will contain the personal details of every child of school age in the UK, is £224m with operating costs of £41m per annum over 10 years. The total cost of ContactPoint is £634m.
ID Cards and national identity register
A report in June 2005 from the London School of Economics predicted that the ID card scheme would cost in total between £10.6bn and £19.2bn over 10 years. The original Home Office estimate was £3.1bn. The official figure was revised up and down to £5.4bn and £4.5bn. The difficulty with the ID card scheme is working what the Home Office has passed on to other ministries and what costs it is hiding. Most estimates outside the government believe the final bill to be somewhere between £10bn and £11bn.
e-Borders
The e-Borders scheme will monitor everyone crossing UK borders. Those leaving the country will be expected to supply up to 53 pieces of information to the government. The estimated cost over the next decade is £1.2bn. Costs to the UK travel industry for the same period, which are expected to be passed onto the travelling public, are £360m. Therefore costs to the taxpayer and indirectly to the public equal about £1.5bn. Again this is unlikely to be the final story, especially when you consider that £650m alone was earmarked for the Raytheon Systems over the next 10 years. As yet there is no publicised estimate for the spy centre at Wythenshawe, which will track all our movements. Known costs are about £1.5bn.
Interception modernisation programme
Proposed in the communications data bill, the IMP will store data from every text, phone call, email and internet connection. The costs of the data silo are estimated at £12bn, although the Home Office has suggested it might be run in the private sector. Experience suggests this is unlikely to cut costs and that the security of the system would be compromised. Estimated cost: £12bn.
Automatic number recognition camera network
This system tracks, records and stores the details of all journeys undertaken on major roads and through city centres. The information is stored for five years. In 2007 this was said to have costs £32.5bn in funding with a further £10m since then; a total of £2m per annum is spent. The final bill over five years is £52m.
NHS spine
This is a computerised system linking health records. Estimated cost: £12.2bn.
Some important points: first, a lot of this money is being spent with foreign systems companies; second, the government has never produced a global figure for the surveillance state; third, there are no estimates of the vast amounts of money being wasted locally, for instance on CCTV schemes, which are held by police officers and the House of Lords to have little effect on crime reduction.
If people with knowledge of the economics of surveillance are reading this, they may like to help to refine the bill.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/apr/24/database-state-surveillance
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Paying billions for our database state
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Monday, March 30th, 2009
By Tom Young |
Some 1.4 million new profiles have been added to the DNA database in the past two years – a rise of 38 per cent – according to figures released by the Home Office.
In February 2007 the database contained some 3.7 million profiles. Figures from the Home Office on Friday (27 March 2009) show that number had risen to 5.1 million by January of this year.
The Home Office estimates that both these figures are about 13 per cent above the actual number of people on the database because of duplicate profiles – a result of people giving different names, or different versions of their name, on separate arrests.
Home Office minister Alan Campbell said: “The presence of replicate profiles does not have an impact on the effectiveness and integrity of the database.”
There are profiles of about four million men and more than one million women on the database; four million of the people on the database are white European, 400,000 are black and 280,000 are Asian.
In terms of age, 1.5 million people listed are between 25 and 34, 1.1 million are between 35 and 44, and 730,000 are between 21 and 24.
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DNA database grows by 38 per cent in two years
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Monday, March 23rd, 2009
The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has published a major report on the UK’s Database State. Technology is transforming government, and there is an urgent need to control and understand it.
One of the most irritating tropes of New Labour is its repeated claim to be “leading the world’ in whatever activity it has decided to highlight to the media. This was not merely a vanity of Tony Blair. If anything it has got worse under Gordon Brown, who is currently claiming to lead the world in saving the banking system.
However, there may be one area where the UK government is indeed pioneering a programme unequalled elsewhere. This is the creation of what is now being called ‘The Database State’. This describes the creation of very large databases at the heart of the UK departments of state, most of which it plans to join up. It is very much an all-British approach that may indeed be designed, at least in part, to compensate for the dis-uniting of the Kingdom by the rise of devolved governments in Scotland and Wales. The thinking behind the policies of the database state has not been properly debated in parliament and the press and the motivations behind it remain unprobed. Meanwhile, the tip of the iceberg is showing already as ID cards are being introduced for foreigners. The planned ID cards are not intended to be internal passports that enhance and confirm the identity of the citizen who holds it. They are rather electronic tags designed to monitor and even control those to whom they are issued. Cory Doctorow has described why he will leave the country rather than be forced to carry one.
The rise of the database state was one of the threats identified by those of us who called the recent Convention on Modern Liberty. While first advanced by the campaigning group NO2ID it is gaining in general usage, although sometimes in a way that may seem alarmist. One of the problems that strikes anyone attempting to debate the issue is it’s two-sided nature. On the one hand the construction of such vast systems of centralised surveillance is frightening enough if it works. Internalising the loss of privacy and sense tha the state knows everything of importance about you, will reduce the people to inner servility. The government is, in effect, modernising subjecthood. On the other had it can’t work.
We know three things: the larger the IT system the larger the number of errors it will generate, in this case errors that could result in lives being ruined by false results. Second, we know that the larger an IT system is the more valuable it is to hackers and the less secure it is likely to be. Third, we know that the more people who have access to a database the less secure it is likely to be. But the British government seems determined to create ever-larger databases that will be accessed by an ever growing number of poorly paid functionaries. We can therefore say with some confidence that Her Majesty’s Government has embarked on a course of action that is bound to go wrong. It should be opposed.
Up until now, the ‘Database State’ has remained more myth than fact in the way it is reported. All this is about to change.
The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, one of the original sponsors of the Convention has commissioned a careful survey of all the state databases that a distinguished group of experts could identify. They found 46. Of these they judged that only six are safe. The rest are either ‘Amber’ or ‘Red’. Many of the latter they found to be almost certainly illegal as well as dangerous.
You can find them listed in the Executive Summary below, while the whole report (in pdf) is available on the Rowntree website and is carried as well on the Conventions. For the first time we have a sober accounting of what is going on, something that Parliament should obviously have done for itself.
The quality of the report and the devastating calm of its prose can be judged from this passage:
The 2005 Transformational Government IT strategy promised citizens choice and personalisation in their interactions with government. However, this was to be based on centralised databases and data sharing across traditional provider and departmental boundaries. At its heart lay not people, but great collections of data about people. Meanwhile, two different faces of government were being joined up.
One is the public services agenda, which formalises our social compassion. It speaks of customers and choice, cares for vulnerable children, provides health and education, keeps the streets clean and generally seeks to please.
The other is the enforcing state, in constant conflict with those who break laws or ignore regulations. It seeks to exercise coercive control and speaks of enemies, targets, suspects and criminals.
The database state appears to fuse these two together. Increasingly users who should feel like a citizen or customer – responsible and in control – feel instead like a suspect or recidivist: fingerprinted, scanned, and their numberplates recorded as they travel around the country. But, as the police themselves freely admit, policing depends on continued public perceptions of legitimacy and fairness. [Nor can] technologies such as DNA profiling, databases and even CCTV be dissociated from ethical and social questions.
The authors as well as Rowntrees are to be congratulated on a fine job that will put the term ‘database state’ fully onto the map. Here we republish the short summary in article form for ease of access and I recommend anyone interested to download the full 68 page pdf and read it for yourself.
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The database state we’re in
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Monday, March 23rd, 2009
The UK’s controversial DNA database and ID cards register are in breach of European data protection and rights laws, according to a new report by the Rowntree Trust published this week.
The report slams Britain’s ‘database state’, claiming that 11 of the 46 biggest public-sector database projects are illegal and should be immediately cancelled or fundamentally reworked to bring them in line with European privacy laws.
In addition to the DNA database and ID cards register, the report calls for the canning of the notorious ContactPoint index of all children in England.
Vast majority of databases problematic
The Guardian reports that: “Only six of the 46 systems, including those for fingerprinting and TV licensing, get a ‘green light’ for being effective, proportionate, necessary and established - with a legal basis to guarantee against privacy intrusions. But even some of these databases have operational problems.”
29 of the databases in the report get an ‘amber light’, which means they have significant problems and need to be immediately rehauled to be brought in line with European laws – including the NHS summary care record, the national childhood obesity database, the national pupil database and the automatic number-plate recognition system.
The study was carried out by the Foundation for Information Policy Research and claims that single mothers, ethnic minorities and young children are particularly at risk due to the UK government’s failing databases.
An ethical disaster
Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge, told The Guardian: “Britain’s database state has become a financial, ethical and administrative disaster, which is penalising some of the most vulnerable [in] society. It also wastes billions of pounds a year and often damages service delivery rather than improving it.
“There must be urgent and radical change in the public-sector database culture so that the state remains our servant, not our master… we have to develop systems that put people first.”
The report adds that the genetic fingerprints of nearly four-in-10 black men aged under the age of 35 are currently held on the DNA database in England, with this information not being deleted, despite suspects subsequently being acquitted or released without charge.
Kids under threat
Children, in particular, have never before been “so measured, graded, monitored and discussed” and this can not be “justified on the basis of good intentions” says the report’s co-author Terri Dowty, of Action on Rights for Children.
Another of the report’s authors, Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute, added that; “The UK needs information systems that support citizens and professionals on a human scale, rather than multi-billion pound centralised databases used to stigmatise and snoop.”
In response, a Ministry of Justice spokesman told BBC News that the government “takes its responsibilities seriously and will consider any concerns carefully, adapting existing safeguards where necessary.”
In response, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman Chris Huhne said: “In their desperation to track our every move, ministers have created a glut of databases, many of which are quite simply illegal.”
By Adam Hartley
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UK’s DNA database and ID register are illegal
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Thursday, December 18th, 2008
BUS drivers in Wrexham have now been issued with DNA testing equipment to catch passengers who spit at them.
By Matt Sims
The swab kits were issued at a special event at Wrexham Bus Station in a bid to combat anti-social behaviour.
As reported in the Leader on Tuesday, the kits will be used to collect samples of saliva if they are spat on which can then be used by North Wales Police to help trace offenders through the national DNA database.
If no immediate match is found, a record of the DNA will be stored and can be used in a future arrest.
The move has been welcomed by transport group Arriva.
A spokesman said: “Thankfully, this form of assault rarely occurs, although we welcome the introduction of the kits as a further safeguard for our drivers against anti-social behaviour.
“Arriva treats the safety of its employees as paramount and will not tolerate any form of anti-social behaviour towards its staff.”
The scheme was launched by Travelsure, a partnership between Wrexham Council, the town’s community safety partnership and local bus operators.
It was set up in December 2007 as a reporting mechanism for bus drivers and passengers to report anti-social behaviour and crime without dialling 999.
It allows also allows information and intelligence provided by the bus operators and members of the public to be locally compiled and analysed.
Cllr David Bithell, lead member for environment and transport said: “Public transport in Wrexham is safe; however there is always a small risk that drivers may suffer from anti-social behaviour or an attack on the vehicle.
“This scheme will make both drivers and passengers feel safer and will help the police catch the perpetrators quicker, the use of DNA swab kits will act as a further deterrent to those who are thinking of committing crime on our transport system.”
Martin Wright, chief transportation and asset management officer said: “TravelSure is an extremely effective way of gathering information and intelligence for the police to use.
“The new scheme will strengthen our partnership and shows our commitment to making public transport safe for everyone.”
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Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Ahead of today’s European Court of Human Rights ruling on whether two innocent men should be removed from the DNA database, the Liberal Democrats have revealed that 40% of Britain’s criminals escape inclusion on the database.
Research by the party revealed that:
> More than 2.3 million criminals, 41.6% of all criminals with a record on the Police National Computer, are not on the DNA database
> There are over 850,000 people on the DNA database who have no criminal record
> Since the database was created, more than a million children have been added to it, including over 340,000 who remain under 18
> The number of crimes solved using DNA evidence fell by nearly 12% last year
Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:
“The Government’s policy is both shambolic and grotesquely unfair.
“Because it has proved easier to target kids and the innocent than criminals, the enormous increase in DNA samples has not led to a corresponding increase in convictions.
“Nobody who committed a crime before 2001 and who has evaded arrest since then will have their records on the computer, so many real crooks are avoiding detection.
“The random growth of the database is due to a policy of incompetence combined with intrusiveness. The police should target former criminals, not the innocent.
“All the innocent people on the database will be outraged that they are being treated worse than nearly half of all convicted criminals.
“Ministers should focus on tracking down the serious offenders not on the database, rather than preying on the vulnerable and the lawful.”
The figures came in answers to Parliamentary Questions.
The most up to date figures show that there were 2,324,879 people with a record on the Police National Computer (PNC) in England and Wales who had a conviction, caution, reprimand or final warning, but no record on the DNA database:
There are 3,259,347 people on the DNA database who have had a conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand recorded on the PNC:
2,324,879 + 3,259,347 = 5,584,226 people have a conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand recorded on the PNC. 41.6% of those (2,324,879/5,584,226) have no record on the DNA database.
857,366 people on the database do not have a current criminal record on the PNC:
<link>
Since the DNA database was created, 1,066,896 profiles of people aged under-18 have been added. This is nearly a quarter of the total. There are currently 344,339 children on the database:
The number of crimes solved by DNA evidence fell by 11.7% last year, from 19,949 crimes (0.37% of all recorded crime) in 2006/07 to 17,614 crimes (0.36% of all recorded crime) in 2007/08. This is down from a peak of 21,098 detections involving DNA evidence in 2002/03:
Publictechnology.net
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Nearly half of all criminals escape the DNA database say Lib Dems
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Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Western Mail | THE debate over privacy and the rights of the individual against those of society at large has been given a fresh twist this week with the arrest of an MP and complaints of police heavy-handedness.
Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman, has become one of the thousands of people forced to give a DNA sample. Mr Green has not been charged with any offence, yet his sample will lie on the database.
As we report today, the expansion of the DNA database has an even more sinister side. Thousands of children have had their DNA taken and stored – a staggering total of 64,610 youngsters in Wales alone.
Are all these children hardened criminals? Is holding their DNA helping to clear up dozens of cold cases, forgotten murders or international terror plots? Of course not. This is an insidious trend that needs to be stopped before it becomes accepted practice.
The discovery of DNA has proved something of a double-edged sword. Its uses in tackling and solving crime have been astonishing.
There are innocent people who would be in prison today were it not for scientists’ ability to clear their names through using new methods of analysing DNA samples. Similarly there are killers behind bars who would still be at large were it not for those same techniques.
And yet the story of DNA technology has not been an entirely happy one. Its success as a crime-solving tool depends on a database from which samples found at crime scenes can be matched. It could be argued, therefore, that the more people there are on the database, the greater the chances of catching more criminals – an argument that has been put forward of late by Lord Justice Sedley.
That takes us into an important area of civil liberties. DNA samples from individuals have to be obtained, with or without consent, for a database to be constructed. Police have already established the right to do this, and have the further right to retain the DNA sample even if no charges are ever brought against the individual they detain.
No-one is arguing that criminals in particular should not have their DNA taken and stored. It’s not clear, either, why samples should always be taken at the moment of arrest rather than at the moment of conviction.
But the biggest change that needs to be made relates to children. What message do we send to youngsters if we take more than 60,000 DNA samples from them, regardless of whether they are then found guilty of anything?
Discovering DNA has transformed crime-fighting, for the better. We shouldn’t allow this achievement, however, to be used as the pretext for another assault on our civil liberties. Mr Green’s arrest has prompted much loose talk about a police state. That’s an exaggeration – but taking DNA samples from our children really is a question that needs an urgent answer.
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64,000 DNA samples from our children - This needs to be stopped
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Sunday, November 16th, 2008
Civil Liberties Group Concerned Over Privacy Issues
MONTPELIER, Vt. — A proposal to expand the state’s DNA database is being questioned by a civil liberties group.
Under the Senate Judiciary Committee’s plan, the state would start collecting genetic samples from people arraigned on felony crimes. The current law only requires DNA samples from people convicted of felonies.
Lawmakers said the change will help protect Vermonters from violent criminals.
But Allen Gilbert, the head of the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union, said that the proposal could violate a person’s right to privacy and put innocent people under surveillance.
He said he is concerned about what happens to the DNA if a person is found not guilty or convicted of a misdemeanor.
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ACLU Challenges DNA Databank Expansion
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Saturday, November 8th, 2008
By Christian Harris | The world’s gone security crazy. Everywhere we go stronger measures are being implemented to combat impersonation, ID theft and fraud. Following news that a leading chain of kiddie’s nurseries in the UK is requiring parents to use fingerprint scanners before collecting their brood, the Post Office has that it is also planning a fingerprinting service to stop scumbags making off with our giros.
The Government proposal by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has asked companies such as the Post Office to collect biometric data from its customers. This sucks, and I’ll tell you why. As high tech as it seems, such a system will allow companies to gain ownership of public identity data that will be vulnerable to abuse. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a 100% secure solution, and saying you’ve got one is an open invitation to hackers who love nothing more than a challenge.
Jacqui Smith said that accredited businesses would have a strong competitive reason to ensure that the biometric transfers they perform are secure, as failure to do so would have an impact on their reputation. Err, doesn’t that go without saying? However, so far the Home Office has given no precise information as to how fingerprints would be linked to biographical data, or any details about how the National Identity Scheme would be implemented. All you can be guaranteed is that once your personal information is on a national database, it’ll be hacked and held to ransom in the public domain in a matter of months. The biggest form of crime in the future will be digital, you mark my words…
Handing over the keys to public identity data to organisations such as Royal Mail will open up a whole new can of worms. It seems preposterous to put our personal data into the hands of a third party when data loss is as commonplace as it is. It’s clear now that our Government has intended to link the ID card scheme into its other services. I’ve been concerned about such an extension of ID card use since they were very first announced. The big concern with ID verification is impersonation. Unfortunately, the Government’s ID card scheme does not go far enough to address this problem, and opening up a photo kiosk-style fingerprinting service at a Post Office with data made accessible to employees will further exacerbate the problem.
The two main weaknesses are an over-reliance on biometric security, and secondly, the preference for centralised data storage. Together these leave the ID card system vulnerable to cloning. Stronger verification technology needs to be in place. Biometric technology alone does not suffice to prevent fraud - despite strong encryption the Dutch biometric passports were cracked soon after launching. The passports were read remotely (thanks to the RFID chip they can be read from 10 meters) and then the security cracked using flaws built into the system, whereupon all of the biometric data could be read.
What’s needed if the ID card scheme is to work is a belt and braces approach. Storing the biometric data as an algorithmic encryption makes it impossible for even the most sophisticated fraudster to read or substitute. Even authorised personnel - and therefore any successful hackers or corrupt employees - would only be able to view binary code, and not the finger, iris or facial data itself. They would also be unable to replicate the algorithm to clone the card. Furthermore, centralised data storage is a security concern. The way the information is stored and structured needs to be carefully implemented to avoid sowing the seeds of disaster.
Storing this data centrally and then linking into a variety of databases is a security concern. Other countries such as France and Italy have stipulated that biometric information is stored only on the cards themselves - thus still within the possession of the individual. If it is stored centrally, then the biometric data must be stored separately from other personal data. This would make it harder for any hacker to join up the dots and steal someone’s identity or clone a card. Back-end systems should enable an audit trail of those personnel who have accessed individual records on those back-end systems. Even so, I still believe it’s all going to end in tears.
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Surveillance Overload
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Friday, November 7th, 2008
How big is it? How many get off it? Your questions answered…
By David Mery
Special Report The National DNA Database (NDNAD) keeps growing: it now holds more than five million DNA profiles of individuals. Getting off the database, if you have been sampled by England or Wales forces, remain as unlikely as ever. And it remains difficult to make sense of the stats bandied at us, with the press quoting wildly differing figures. So we decided to investigate.
In August, the Daily Mail reported that “4.5 million genetic profiles [are] on record. Up to 1.5 million - or a third of these - are from innocent people”.
In another article on the same day, the Mail reported “[t]he figure of 573,639 people on the database who have not been convicted, cautioned, formally warned or reprimanded has pushed the overall total to 4.2 million.”
This is an extreme example of the difficulty of making sense of statistics concerning the NDNAD. Our first step was to find source data.
In May 2007 the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) started to administer the NDNAD. We’ll use data obtained in a recent response to a Freedom of Information request to the NPIA to get some sense out of the data and figure out what are all the implied assumptions.
Data from the NPIA is authoritative, but the organisation’s view of what is the NDNAD is a matter of opinion. The NPIA claims that “The NDNAD is not a criminal records database. It holds very little information about a subject’s identity - only their name, date of birth, sex and ethnic appearance. Inclusion on the DNA database does not signify a criminal record, and there is no personal cost or disadvantage by being on it”.
The National DNA Database Ethics Group and the Human Genetics Commission both consider the NDNAD to be a crime-related intelligence database. Recent findings suggest that composite statistics do not mask identity within genome-wide association studies and that DNA profiles previously considered anonymous and not containing genetic markers may reveal much more than was thought.
Often assumptions are made about the data; and these may not be the same for different sets of data. The NDNAD includes profiles of DNA samples taken by forces from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but often figures given in Parliament or in the press are only for samples taken by the England and Wales forces.
The NDNAD includes DNA profiles of the DNA samples taken from individuals and profiles of the DNA found at crime scenes. Here are figures up-to 2008-09-01.
| (At 2008-09-01) |
England & Wales forces |
Other forces |
| Total number of subject profiles |
4,969,225 |
327,088 |
| Estimated total number of individuals |
4,319,807 |
273,358 |
| Total number of crime scene profiles |
320,335 |
13,749 |
The subject profiles consist of both profiles of DNA samples taken from individuals following arrest for a recordable offence, known as criminal justice samples, and profiles of subjects who volunteered a DNA sample (whether those that do so are sufficiently informed before they give their consent is an issue that was raised during the presentation of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics; the NDNAD Ethics Group has been discussing the volunteer consent form for DNA sampling and accompanying information), for example, for elimination purpose.
Another source of confusion is that the number of subject profiles on the NDNAD is higher than the estimated number of individuals on it. This is often misrepresented. It happens because some of the profiles held are replicates. Multiple samples are taken from the same subject and profiled when on different occasions there’s confusion concerning the person’s name. Replication also happens when the police decide to resample an individual. The number of replications is estimated at around 13 per cent (it varies over time and between police forces).
Define innocent
A common question is how many of these individuals are innocents. This is particularly difficult to find out.
First, the National DNA Database was allegedly never set up to record this information; this is in the Police National Computer (PNC).
Second, what is meant by innocent is not always consistent; the obvious definition of all those never charged and those acquitted may not map directly to the information available. The NPIA ran a report on 2008-03-31:
| (At 2008-03-31 for England & Wales forces) |
Total individuals |
Percentage of total |
| With a conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand |
3,259,347 |
79% |
| No conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand listed |
573,639 |
14% |
| Not known as PNC record removed |
283,727 |
7% |
| Estimated total number of individuals |
4,116,713 |
100% |
From the above table it can be deduced that, as of March 2008, there were DNA profiles for at least 573,639 innocent individuals and possibly for as many as 857,366 innocents. Fourteen to 21 per cent of the sampled individuals recorded in the NDNAD are innocent. Furthermore, that does not take into account any mistakes in the PNC.
What happens to the DNA samples and profiles of all those innocents? Most of them are kept and retained forever. The procedure to get off the NDNAD is complex and assume that one case is considered exceptional enough to justify such a procedure in the first place.
See El Reg’s How to delete your DNA profile for more on this. (Note that the only process map the Metropolitan Police has published since is a rehash of the usual guidelines and the Specialist Crime Directorate 12 wrote that ‘[t]here is no additional information I can supply on this subject’.)
| Subject profiles removals |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 (adjusted) |
| England & Wales forces |
677 |
34 |
81 |
271 |
310 |
222 |
| Other forces |
23,492 |
19,160 |
21,580 |
21,969 |
21,265 |
19,164 |
The huge difference in numbers between removals of samples taken England & Wales forces and by other forces is due to differences between English & Welsh and Scottish laws. DNA profiles and samples of innocents taken by Scotland forces can’t be kept forever.
Whether England and Wales forces can keep stalling on the removal of DNA profiles (and destruction of DNA samples) of innocents has gone all the way to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights:
“The [Marper and S v. UK] case concerns the decision to continue storing fingerprints and DNA samples taken from the applicants after unsuccessful criminal proceedings against them were closed.” The hearing was in February and the ruling will be given later this year. (Note that the adjusted figure for 2008 is based on data up to September adjusted for the rest of the year.)
I did not request the data for calendar additions to the NDNAD, but to put things in perspective, the yearly average number of subject profiles added to the NDNAD for the the financial years 2005-07 was 711,645 (NPIA NDNAD Annual report data). For England and Wales forces it was 646,767 (John Reid in Parliament written answers).
Profiling at a young age
There’s particular concern as to how many young individuals are included in the NDNAD. Depending on whether you consider the NDNAD as a criminal database, being included in it at a young age is worrying.
| (At 2008-09-01) |
England & Wales forces |
Other forces |
| Total subject profiles from 10-17 year old |
343,745 |
10,671 |
The England & Wales forces again lead in in their aggressiveness to sample DNA. Six pe rcent of all the profiles in the NDNAD were taken by other forces, but only three percent of the DNA profiles of subjects 10 to 17 years old (when the report was ran) was for samples taken by other forces.
The NPIA last ran a more complete report concerning 10-17 year-olds on 2008-04-10:
| (At 2008-04-10 for England & Wales forces) |
Total individuals |
Percentage of total |
| With a conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand |
264,297 |
87% |
| No conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand listed |
39,095 |
13% |
| Estimated total number of individuals |
303,393 |
100% |
(The number of those with a PNC record is one less that the estimated total number of individuals. The NPIA did not state if there’s one youngster with a PNC record already removed, which is unlikely or whether this should be viewed as a statistical error). From the above table, it can be seen that at least 39,095 innocent youngsters are affected.
If you happen to live in England or Wales, being young or innocent, or both, is not enough to ensure you won’t be captured in this massive database. ®
Bootnote
It can be argued that retaining DNA profiles of individuals is not even effective in solving crimes. Helen Wallace, from GeneWatch, debunked this assumption last year when looking at who should be on the NDNAD:
“Collecting more DNA from crime scenes has made a big difference to the number of crimes solved, but keeping DNA from more and more people who have been arrested - many of whom are innocent - has not. Since April 2003, about 1.5 million extra people have been added to the Database, but the chances of detecting a crime using DNA has remained constant, at about 0.36%.”
David Mery is a technologist and writer based in London. Last year he succeeded in having his DNA profile purged. His website is gizmonaut.net.
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Friday, October 31st, 2008
The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) says it has dismissed 14 people over the last three years in relation to passport database abuses.The IPS is now closely involved in building the government’s national identity card database.
Of 16 cases where data protection is said to have been breached, all but one involved members of staff who had legitimate access to the Passport Application Support System database.
But those investigated were shown to have used this access for unauthorised checks not related to their duties. The other case involved a contractor misusing data.
In two cases, investigations did not lead to dismissal, leaving 14 staff being shown the door by the IPS.
The Home Office released the figures in response to a parliamentary written question from shadow home affairs minister James Brokenshire.
The figures show that the problem of unauthorised IPS database checks seems to be worsening.
In 2007-08, the IPS disciplined eight people, with seven being sacked. In 2006-07 it disciplined six and fired five, and in 2005-06 it disciplined and sacked two staff.
The released figures come at a sensitive time for the government, as it starts to issue national identity cards to foreigners from outside the European Economic Area, and gets ready to issue ID cards to workers in security sensitive areas such as airports next year.
Computer Weekly
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
More than 722,000 samples were added to the National DNA Database last year - a record increase for one year.
The database has samples from some 4m people and is the world’s largest per head of population, the National Policing Improvement Agency said.
Its report concluded that DNA was proving to be most helpful in solving crimes such as burglary.
In 2006-7 more than 44,000 samples from crime scenes had matched suspects’ DNA on the database, it said.
The database does not hold information on whether those on it have committed any offence. Criminal data is stored on the Police National Computer.
On record
Under current laws, the database holds DNA records from suspects arrested in England and Wales, regardless of whether they are subsequently charged or convicted.
And innocent people who volunteer to give a DNA sample during a police inquiry also have their details kept on record.
The agency said in its first annual report that 3.8 million different individuals were “represented” on the database at the end of March 2007.
Of those, 79.6% were men, 41% aged 15-24 and 8% were samples from children aged 14 and under, the annual report said.
The new figures also showed that the number of samples taken from crime scenes dropped by 20% during the year.
Just over 55,200 new crime scene sample profiles were added in 2006-07 compared with 68,774 in 2005-06 - due to a drop in the number of burglary and theft offences.
Detection rate
The report said that DNA “makes a relatively small contribution” to the total number of detections.
But it “makes a powerful contribution to those cases in which it is available,” the report stated, adding that while the overall domestic burglary detection rate was 17%, it rose to 39% where DNA was retrieved from crime scenes.
A spokesman for the Home Office said: “The report reflects the real and significant contribution the agency has already made to improving policing effectiveness and the service it delivers to the public.”
The database has been the subject of criticism over its inclusion of DNA samples from children and those who were not convicted of any crime.
The Home Office said in August that the profiles of an estimated 39,095 10 to 17-year-olds who “had not been convicted, cautioned, received a final warning/reprimand and had no charge pending against them” were on the database.
BBC
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