UK: Just in Case You Ever Commit a Crime, We Want Your DNA NOW.

Before 2001, the police could take DNA samples during investigations but had to destroy these and the records derived from them if the people concerned were acquitted or charges were not proceeded with.

The law was changed in 2001 to remove this requirement and changed again in 2004 so that DNA samples could be taken from anyone arrested for a recordable offence and detained in a police station.

Neither the Home Office nor the National Policing Improvement Agency would explain the reason for the apparent huge increase in the number of people not convicted of any offence being added to the system.

And a Home Office spokeswoman said: ‘The National DNA Database is a key intelligence tool which has revolutionised the way the police can protect the public through identifying offenders and securing more convictions.

‘It provides critical investigative leads for police investigations, providing on average about 45,000 matches per year.’

The spokeswoman pointed to the case of Abdul Azad, who was arrested for violent disorder in his Birmingham home in February 2005.

He had a DNA sample taken and was released without charge.

Later that year a rape happened in Stafford, 25 miles away. There were no clues until skin from beneath the victim’s fingernails was profiled and found to match the DNA taken from Azad. He was jailed for six years.

Police can take DNA fingerprints from anybody arrested on suspicion of a recordable offence.

But DNA taken from victims and witnesses to separate it from suspects’ samples at crime scenes can also be added to the database.

The information can be stored indefinitely and potentially matched with samples at crime scenes, even if the suspect is innocent.

Civil rights campaigners and MPs have been calling on the Government to change the law to force the police to destroy the DNA records of anyone without a criminal record.