Brinworld: EU DNA fingerprint databases

[Eugen Leitl]

http://www.truthera.com/2007/06/14/european-police-get-access-to-your-dna/


European Police Get Access to Your DNA

June 14, 2007 | Posted by: Leonid Shalimov

Police across the European Union are to be given free access to the DNA of
four million Britons, a million of whom are innocent, it has emerged.

Every member state will also be granted access to millions of fingerprints,
as well as vehicle and driver registrations.

A two-year agreement on cross-border co- operation between seven EU countries
now becomes law involving all 27 nations.

The Tories said the so-called bPrum Conventionb was a bsell-outb, as many of
the controversial proposals were salvaged from the wreckage of the EU
constitution.

They added that the deal - signed by Home Office Minister Joan Ryan in
Luxembourg - also paves the way for police from different EU states to set-up
joint patrols.

London MEP Syed Kamall said: bWe are sleepwalking into a Big Brother Europe
while our government stands idly by.b

Britain receives by far the worst deal of the member states.

More than 4.2million people are contained on our database, or 7 per cent of
the population. It includes a million innocent people, who were arrested but
never charged and 100,000 children.

The database is 50 times the size of its French equivalent. In Austria, less
than 1 per cent of the population is included.

Coverage in Germany is half of that. The EU average is to have around half a
per cent of the populationbs DNA stored.

Searches for DNA profiles will be carried out on a bhit, no hit basisb by the
27 member states - which include Romania and Bulgaria.

Police officers will get a simple byes, there is a match or no, there is notb
answer.

If there is a match, there will be a fast-track request system to get all the
details.

Driver databases will be accessed online.

Tory European Parliament spokesman Philip Bradbourn said that much of what
had been agreed was originally part of the EU constitution.

He added: bMr Blair has started the constitution sell-out today. Now
everyonebs personal details can be sent to police throughout Europe because
Britain did not wield the veto.

bThis Prum treaty fundamentally goes against the rules of data protection and
civil liberties that we have come to expect in Europe.b

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: bThis is a serious development which
we strongly object to. It is typical of incompetent Home Office Ministers to
give away powers like this without thinking through the consequences.b

The Luxembourg meeting also rubber-stamped a deal to set-up a common database
for visa applicantsb pictures and fingerprints.

>From mid 2009, it will store digitalised photos and fingerprints of up to 70
million people applying for visas across the EU.

One country would be able to know if someone had already been granted or
denied a visa in another, and whether the person had overstayed their time in
the EU.

The data will be stored for five years and police will be able to consult the
database on a case-by-case basis.

The Prum Convention was originally signed in Prum, Germany, between Belgium.
Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria.

Britain had an informal agreement to share DNA, and did so in around 5,000
cases with the Dutch last year, but no firm agreement was in place.

Home Office Minister Mrs Ryan said: bCriminals do not respect borders. It is
therefore vitally important that our law enforcement authorities have the
tools available to obtain information held by other EU countries as quickly
as possible to help with the investigation and prevention of crime.b

A Home Office spokesman insisted the deal would not give police from other EU
countries unfettered access to national DNA, fingerprint and vehicle
registration files and that co-operation would still depend on mutual
agreement.

The Government had also ensured that provisions on cross-border pursuit had
been dropped, she said.

Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini described the deal as ba very important
first stepb, and said he planned to extend co-operation even further in
future.

Author: James Slack