To Have and to Hold: The Future of DNA Retention in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The United Kingdom’s National DNA Database, in existence since 1995, is now in jeopardy after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the United Kingdom’s DNA retention policy violates a person’s right to a private life under the European Convention on Human Rights. The retention program is the most sweeping in the world and had previously withstood a number of challenges in British courts. The ECHR decision now presents the United Kingdom with the problem of complying with the judgment while protecting the Database it has built over the last three decades. The question that remains is whether the United Kingdom can do both.