A proposed amendment to the Protection of Freedoms Bill, submitted by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, would allow for the indefinite retention of biometric data (including DNA profiles). The police could apply to a Commissioner who would then make a decision. There would be opportuity for the data's owner to make a submission to the Commissioner, but there would be no redress to the courts. There are two sub-sections that would allow this: the first covers situations where the alleged victim is a minor or vulnerable person, but the second allows a request for retention to be made if the data could be useful for the "prevention or detection of crime".
This appears to be a complete U-turn on DNA retention that would not meet the European Court of Human Rights judgement, and mean that DNA could be retained indefinitely on the basis of a government-appointed Commissioner.
Obviously these are my tentative assessments and I would expect that others may be able to shed light on the exact consequences of this development.
Mark.
