Every Met police officer to be 'tagged' and DNA profiled

from the Torgygraph, 11 April 2008:

Well, its nice to know its not just the average citizens who are being forced into the database society: the pigs will have to be tagged like naughty children too.

Every Met police officer to be 'tagged'

By Daily Telegraph Reporter

Every Metropolitan police officer will be "tagged" so that senior officers can monitor their movements on a tracking system, it has been disclosed.

The plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in Britain's largest police force, including the Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair - will augment the Airwave radio system used to help monitor officers' movements, the magazine Police Review reported.

The electronic tracking device, called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS), means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.

According to the service provider Telent, the technology "will enable operations centres to identify the location of each officer at any time they are on duty, whether overground or underground". Although police chiefs say the technology is aimed at "improving officer safety" and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is simply a Big Brother-style system to keep tabs on them.

Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any officer to within a few feet of their location - will end community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff.

One officer, in Peckham, south London, said: "They are keeping the exact workings of the system very hush-hush at the moment although it will be similar to the way criminals are electronically tagged. There will not be any choice about wearing one."

Neither the Met nor Telent would provide Police Review with more information about how the system will work.

[original article]

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DNA-profile police to prevent crime scene contamination

By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Correspondent

Every police officer must be DNA-profiled as a matter of urgency to avoid them unintentionally contaminating crime scenes, the forensic science watchdog said yesterday.

The study, commissioned after doubts were raised over the reliability of low template DNA testing, made a series of recommendations for improving the collection and interpretation of samples.

Professor Brian Caddy, who led the review, said the technique is fundamentally safe, but is not being used as effectively as it might be.

He said there was an “urgent need for the DNA profiles of all serving operational police officers and crime scene personnel to be included on the Police Elimination database”.

This was vital to ensure that police officers’ DNA which might be accidentally left at a crime scene was discounted.

“The incomplete nature of the Police Forces’ DNA database is a hindrance,” the report said.

Low template testing can build up a DNA profile from just a few cells, which can be deposited by something as simple as holding a glass or door handle but are too small for standard DNA profiling.

The Caddy Review made 21 recommendations for improving the use of low template testing.

They included the establishment of a programme to educate police scenes of crime and forensics officers on collecting samples for low template analysis.

National standards were also recommended for the interpretation of low template results, together with the development of an advisory panel to guide the courts on how to interpret low template DNA evidence.

Professor Caddy said the science of low template DNA testing is sound and secure.

“We also believe that the work on the interpretation of DNA is good, but needs to be developed more,” he said.

“The drive is towards the setting of standards of recovering DNA from crime scenes, and having set those standards, making sure they are properly implemented.”

Andrew Rennison, the Forensic Science Regulator, said he was confident that the technique is safe for use in the courts.

“Scientific evidence has to be considered on a case-by-case basis by the prosecution, defence and the experts, and you can never say the science in a case proves something absolutely,” he said.

“I’m perfectly satisfied that we should be using these techniques. I’m satisfied the science is safe and fit for purpose, but there is work to be done around collection and interpretation.”

[original article]

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