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back to article Advisory body to 'reconsider' ethics of hanging onto 'mugshots'

The UK's national biometrics ethics advisory body has promised to reconsider the government's use of custody images. The National DNA Database Ethics Group last year raised ethical concerns about the retention and use of "custody images" – which include pics of people who have never been convicted of a crime – on Police …

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  1. Cynic_999

    Waste of time

    It doesn't matter what some committee, the HRA or even UK law states, the police will still retain forever all the photos, fingerprints and DNA that are taken from everyone who is arrested whether they are ever charged with a crime or not.

    How can anyone prove any different? If there is a slip-up that reveals that an innocent person's data had been retained, it will be waved away as an "oversight"

    10 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Orwell turning in his grave.

    Free society, err.. yes sure. Expletive expletive.

    8 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We should have a database of everyone's fingerprints. The database could be accessed by anyone, as long as they had a court Order, a set of fingerprints from a scene of crime, and the ability to walk into the centre because who in the right mind would have the database hooked up to the Internet.

    But then who in the right mind would trust the authority of not doing something illegal with it.

    4 1 Reply
    1. Teiwaz
      Reply Icon

      We should have a database of everyone's fingerprints.

      I'd give it a week before the entire thing turns up in the wild, having been on a laptop or some other electronic device, left on a bus/train/ wine bar/strip joint and tattoo parlour....

      4 0 Reply
      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        " left on a bus/train/ wine bar/strip joint and tattoo parlour...."

        .. under a pile of leaves.

        6 0 Reply
        1. Teiwaz
          Reply Icon

          .. under a pile of leaves.

          Are you suggesting it might be of use as hedge porn?

          Hmm, the police are hoarding pics of the underage too.....

          3 0 Reply

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    If the subject is innocent then it's difficult to see how the policing provisions in the data protection laws can apply. Time for the ICO to start fining a few police forces.

    3 0 Reply
  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Gimp

    The UK Home Office, maintaing its status as the cause of most evil in the UK government.

    "We want to share more data and we want to delete less (or any) of it so we can do so."

    Their complete failure to handle asylum processing (is 10 years without a decision a record? I don't think so) and bizarre notions about what had to be done to satisfy EU rules were probably a major contributor to the Brexit leave vote.

    Incompetents lead by data fetishist aholes.

    0 1 Reply
  7. phuzz Silver badge
    Joke

    "staff who manufacture DNA testing kits"

    Get a job manufacturing test kits and you'll never worry about being arrested for any more murders!

    (see icon >>>>>>>>>>)

    0 0 Reply

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