DNA database: Make us all suspects

We seem to be busily building the world's first popular police state. Opinion polls show high levels of support for identity cards, surveillance cameras, detention without trial - and now a national DNA database covering every individual, including those who have never had any dealings with the police. Given the growing fear of crime, such attitudes are not surprising. Events in the past week have encouraged them further. Both Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright and Mark Dixie, murderer of Sally Anne Bowman, were caught largely through DNA samples. Police officers and victims' relatives want the change. The case seems open and shut. Britain already has the world's largest DNA database. Anyone arrested in England and Wales is compelled to submit to a DNA swab and the record is kept whether he is convicted or not. In Scotland this rule is restricted to violent and sex offenders, and then for only three years unless an extension is applied for. But the operation of the scheme south of the Border has led to the beginning of serious doubts. As so often with measures aimed at greater security, people are far less enthusiastic when they are affected personally. Many entirely innocent citizens have been disturbed by the way they or their children have been registered - for life - as potential criminals. There have also been suggestions that police have abused their arrest powers to collect DNA samples.