http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=003986439041226&rtmo=aCau54uJ&atmo=
   rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/00/12/10/nkit10.html
   Electronic Telegraph, UK, Dec 10 2000
   Roadside DNA tests planned
   By David Cracknell, Deputy Political Editor
   DRIVERS or other people stopped by police could be asked to supply
   on-the-spot hair or saliva samples to identify whether they are wanted
   criminals.
   Government scientists have developed a hand-held DNA testing kit to be
   carried and operated by police officers during regular patrols. The
   device
   would be electronically linked to the national DNA database, which Tony
   Blair has hailed as an essential tool in the fight against crime.
   The Forensic Science Service will disclose to Parliament this week that
   the
   equipment could be ready for standard use within a couple of years. The
   testing kit, which could become as common as the breathalyser or police
   baton, will dramatically cut the time it takes to match DNA evidence
   from
   crime scenes to suspects. It will raise fresh fears among civil
   liberties
   campaigners who believe that the pendulum has swung too far in the
   police's
   direction.
   Forensic scientists already expect that soon they will be able to use a
   single
   hair sample to discover a suspect's eye colour, facial characteristics,
   height
   and weight. They say that the next step will be portable testing kits
   that need
   little technical ability to operate. The FSS will give evidence to the
   House of
   Lords science and technology committee this week, telling peers that
   research
   on the kits is well advanced.
   It currently takes at least 48 hours to profile biological material
   collected from
   a crime scene, but the new kits could give police an instant lead if
   they were
   made standard issue. They would allow such tests to be carried out
   outside
   the laboratory for the first time. A spokesman for the FSS, which is a
   Government agency, said: "We feel that we have gone as far down the
   line as
   we can in terms of what a DNA profile can tell us about an individual
   and the
   next area we are looking at is speeding up the process."
   The Telegraph has seen written evidence to the Lords committee from one
   of
   the organisation's chief scientists, Dr Bob Bramley, and research
   documents.
   The committee began its inquiry after becoming concerned about the
   dramatic
   increase in the scale of DNA samples collected by the police.
   Earlier this year, the Prime Minister announced an extra million for
   the
   expansion of the police's DNA database in Birmingham to include samples
   from "the entire active criminal population" - estimated to be around
   three
   million.
   The police have already collected nearly a million samples from those
   convicted of an offence that carries a prison sentence. Senior officers
   are now
   lobbying for changes in the law to allow further expansion of the
   database to
   include innocent people who volunteer to take part in mass screenings.
   Civil liberties campaigners are opposing any extension of the police's
   authority
   to to collect samples. They cite an official report which found that
   thousands
   of samples are being illegally held on the database because forces are
   failing
   to remove the records of acquitted suspects. John Wadham, the director
   of
   the human rights group Liberty, said: "The law already allows the
   unjustified
   collection of samples and we know that there are at least 50,000 being
   illegally held at the FSS database. This is not the time to relax the
   law."