LEICESTER, Sept 12: The British inventor of DNA fingerprinting has called for the establishment of a database of DNA from every person in the country, to fight crime.

Britain established the first national criminal DNA database in 1995 and Sir Alec Jeffreys, who devised the technique, told a science conference a national database should be the next step.

Kuwait was the only country he named that had already passed legislation for such a database.

“There are powerful arguments for it,” he told a science conference on Thursday.

Britain’s criminal database has DNA samples of 1.5 million convicted criminals. It also includes samples from suspects who have been cleared of offences, which Jeffreys believes is discriminatory.

He told the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual festival that crime investigation statistics indicated that minority groups would be more likely to be included at present, so a database of everyone could be fairer.

“The technology could deliver that. With the right, very stringent, safeguards I would be in favour of that global database,” he said.

Civil rights groups look set to oppose the idea and Jeffreys stressed that the tests, if you had biological evidence from the scene of a crime, would only identify suspects, not prove guilt.

“The national database must only be used as an investigative tool, not as a prosecution tool,” he said, adding that there is no such thing as an error-free database. Once a suspect had been identified the investigation and legal process would take over to prove guilt or innocence.

“With a global national DNA database it would be straightforward to identify a prime lead in an investigation,” he added.

DNA fingerprinting is used to identify or eliminate suspects in a crime. Each person has a unique DNA fingerprint. The method uses special markers, or DNA repeats, that are located throughout the human genome.

Investigators working at the World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks last year asked relatives of victims to bring in combs and toothbrushes so they could match DNA samples taken from them with bodies or body parts.

Jeffreys envisages a national centre, which could be a separate agency not run by the police, that would consist of three databases — one with DNA samples, another with names and addresses and a third database that would match the first two.

“Unless you can get into all three databases you cannot get any information at all,” he explained.

Giving an example of how it would work, he said a DNA sample from a crime scene would be checked with information in the first database. If a match was found a court order would have to be obtained by the police to connect the profile to a name.—Reuters