Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Big Brother..........


................is certainly trying to watch you. Lord Justice Sedley has suggested that we should all go on the DNA register, even people visiting the UK. The argument is that there are already a lot of people on, with an unfair proportion of ethnic minorities, and that other people who could be convicted by DNA are walking free. I am afraid I don't buy this idea. I ahve no problems with having ID cards, I have always said that why worry if you have nothing to hide. But keeping DNA records is invading privacy. It is one thing for me to carry proof of who I am, quite another for someone to have who I am on record.
If there is an imbalance that needs addressing then it should work the other way. Don't keep records indefinitely. The length of time they are kept should vary depending on the reason why it was taken in the first place. Or if there isn't a conviction then delete the records. But don't turn us into a country that Orwell or Huxley would have been pleased to write about.

1 comment:

David Oliver said...

I recently had a Y DNA test for genealogy. If I were younger I would worry about it. I'm old enough I don't have to. What are they going to do - put me in a nursing home for the irrational?