Home Office denies DNA database U-turn

The Home Office denied making a U-turn on its promise to delete the DNA records of innocent people yesterday, after it emerged that the samples will remain in forensic-science laboratories but in anonymised form.

This was revealed in a letter from the Home Office minister James Brokenshire, in which he said it was "theoretically possible that a laboratory could identify an individual's profile from the barcode, but only in conjunction with the force which took the original sample, by giving details of the barcode of the force and asking for the individual's name".

The Home Office said in a statement: "Our position remains the same – we will take and retain the DNA of the guilty and remove innocent people from the database. Our proposals will see all profiles of innocent people removed from the DNA database. Police will not be able to access any profiles given by innocent people and any attempt to do so would be a criminal offence."