LONDON (Reuters) - Everyone should be DNA fingerprinted to help tackle
crime and enhance personal security, the inventor of the modern forensic
technique has suggested.
Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, of the department of genetics at the
University of Leicester, said existing criminal DNA databases were too
small to catch criminal suspects.
"At the moment, we have a criminal DNA database of about two million
profiles in the UK," he told reporters as scientists met at the top
scientific body, the Royal Society, to celebrate the discovery of DNA 50
years ago.
"The real problem in a typical crime is that even if you get DNA from a
crime scene, you can't pick up a suspect because they don't have a record,
so one possibility is to extend the database to include the entire
population."
Jeffreys said he would feel "very uncomfortable" if such a database was
run by the police.
"That would give entirely the wrong perception. But I would certainly
be in favour of a database like that being established by a quite
independent agency."
The database would carry a person's individual DNA profile and would
certify their identity. "So it is not just a criminal investigation
database but a personal security and assurance database as well," he said.
DNA fingerprinting -- from the tiniest of human specimens -- is already
widely used in criminal investigations, paternity testing and to help
settle applications for immigration, affecting the lives of thousands of
people in a way Sherlock Holmes could not have dreamed possible.
The technique was developed in 1984 by Jeffreys after he noticed the
existence of certain sequences of DNA that do not contribute to the
function of a gene are repeated within the gene and in other genes of a
DNA sample.
In most cases it provides an accuracy of identification in the tens to
hundreds of millions to one. Its use has trapped perpetrators but has also
exonerated the innocent who might otherwise have been found guilty due to
circumstantial evidence.
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