Rebecca Thomson reports:
A leading DNA scientist whose work led to the creation of the DNA database has called for innocent people to be removed from it.
Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of genetic fingerprinting, says forcing innocent people to remain on the database will erode public support for the project.
Currently anyone who is arrested is added to the database, whether or not they go on to be convicted. It now has 5 million people on it.
Read more on ComputerWeekly.com
I think the bigger question with all of these database is… is any of the information in them credible.
With products like DNA Identiguard it is relatively trivial to hide your genetic identity from genetic testing and DNA fingerprinting altogether.
I won’t be surprised if there were wrongful convictions based solely on DNA evidence. And I am not saying the science of DNA fingerprinting is wrong, but rather these tests are done by humans who make mistakes (mislabel tubes, mislabel experiments, do not run proper positive and negative controls, etc.)