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London - A civil liberties storm erupted yesterday after a senior judge called for the genetic details of every person in Britain, and all visitors to the country, to be added to the national DNA database.
Critics said such a "chilling" move would infringe privacy, be hugely impractical and have only a marginal impact on crime.
Downing Street and the Home Office, which have been accused of moving Britain towards a surveillance society, distanced themselves from Lord Justice Sedley's controversial suggestion but did not rule it out.
About 4.1 million samples are already on the database, almost 7 per cent of the population and far more than in any other Western country. Police can take DNA from anyone arrested, regardless of whether they eventually charged.
But Sir Stephen Sedley, a Court of Appeal judge, said there were "indefensible" anomalies in the system, including disproportionate numbers of people from ethnic minorities on the database.
He said: "We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, your DNA is permanently on record and if you haven't, it isn't." He said the remedy could be to place every person on the database, as well as the 32 million people who visited the country each year.
- Independent
