What are the chances, do you reckon, of my finding a taker for my DNA? I’d like to make the offer on account of the forthcoming (Protection of) Freedoms Bill, which promises to make the police drop the DNA details of roughly a million people from the national database who have never been found guilty of an offence. I’m against, which I know puts me at odds with the mass of right-thinking opinion. From the Daily Mail to Nick Clegg, liberals and libertarians are united in regarding the database as one of the more Big Brotherish manifestations of the state, and its restriction as a return to the spirit of Magna Carta.
I am as fond of the spirit of Magna Carta as the next person, but I’m keener on more fundamental liberties than the right to keep my genetic details to myself. Such as? Well, I rang the Police Federation to ask what the effects would be of dropping a million people from the database.
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