My friendly Big Brother

Dec 21 2008 by Ken Oxley, Sunday Sun

I’M beginning to wonder whether I’m in a minority of one in thinking our increasingly invasive Big Brother society is more a force for good than evil.

Barely a week goes by that you don’t read about some pressure group kicking off about nanny state interference in our private lives.

But while there have been — and will continue to be — some abuses by the authorities, in the vast majority of cases, the so-called prying eyes are there to protect law-abiding citizens.

CCTV cameras now play a vital role in crime detection. Likewise, speed cameras slow motorists down near accident blackspots.

You might argue that they are thinly-disguised revenue generation tools, and you’d have a point.

But the fact is, they only punish those who were breaking the law . . . many of whom put innocent lives at risk by driving too fast.

The daddy of all bugbears for human rights campaigners, however, is the UK’s despised DNA database. And this month those opposed to it won a major victory.

The European Court of Human Rights is forcing Britain to reconsider the way its database operates.

The likely outcome is that thousands of people who had their DNA taken — but who were subsequently not charged with any offence — will have their records destroyed.

But why? As innocent as these people are in the eyes of the law, can we truly say that none of them will go on to commit an offence in the future?

Right now their details are harmless records that, in all probability, will remain on file and never be needed. Their existence need not have any impact on their day-to-day lives.

But there is a possibility that, for a tiny minority, those records will one day become damning evidence in a criminal investigation.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has at least vowed that all murderers and rapists who committed their crimes before the database was set up will be forced to give samples before being released from prison. Quite right too . . . they sacrificed their human rights when they committed their offences.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be rehabilitated into society. It just means Big Brother is watching them, for which we should all be grateful, not cynical.

I would willingly provide a sample of my DNA for a national database as, I believe, would many others.

There are concerns that DNA profiling is not foolproof and is sometimes inconclusive. This is true, but no criminal case relies solely on forensic evidence.

Besides, what is also true is that forensic science has revolutionised crime detection and that many dangerous people are behind bars right now thanks to our greater understanding of DNA.

Sadly, it would seem the Government must now acquiesce to the European Court’s demands and destroy many records that might one day have solved a crime.

And that, I believe, is a crime in itself.