UK DNA Database Riddled with Erroneous Records

May 21, 2007: The UK’s national DNA database, which houses 4.1 million records pertaining to evidence of crimes collected by police, has been found to have upwards of 100,000 incorrect records.

According to theregister.co.uk, the complex relationship between the country’s police force, its National DNA Database Unit and the forensic service along with a lack of checks and balances has left its DNA database with the large amount of corrupted records, causing 26,200 load problems alone.

This may not sound like such a big deal, but because of the errors it has been estimated that 183 crimes were committed that could have otherwise been stopped.

“There's in the order of 100,000 unreconciled records now," claims The Register’s source.

As for how many records are erroneous all up, the source claimed that the department doesn’t actually know. “There was a lower stringency on loading checks. There might have been an error but it wouldn't have been apparent.”

The DNA database works by linking Police DNA samples across agencies with unique numbers. The numbers are assigned electronically and by hand by the police before being sent for processing. If there is an error in processing, then the numbers will not match up and the data in the database will not load correctly.

Poor co-operation between the three agencies involved has been cited for the shambolic state of the database, where 10-12 per cent of DNA samples are said to be rejected because of these processing problems stemming from manual, paper-based procedures still in use.

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