The Telegraph reports that Scotland’s most senior police office has called for the creation of a DNA database of the entire population.
I can understand the logic that leads people to think that instituting massive surveillance systems or creation of large databases that hold information about every single citizen. If a little of something is good then a lot of that thing must surely be a great thing.
It is believed that because we derive benefits from the current DNA database that increasing the size of that database will derive a commensurate increase in benefits. But that is not the case and any little increase in benefit is I believe far outweighed by the costs both in terms of privacy but also financial.
As a database increases in size the number of errors in that database increase which could lead to mismatches and criminal acts erroneously linked to innocent people.