DNA database - good idea?

Red_Marauder

Zuiderzee wrote: »

I am not suggesting a conspiracy theory, I am suggesting that our systems are so open to abuse and corruption that those will occur.

You cannot refuse to keep up with technological advances on the grounds that corruption might occur.
Not least because you have failed to describe the nature of any corruption that would occur.
It is a fact that genetic markers are useless to insurance companies to assess population health unlike what you suggested earlier. It is a fact that "fake" DNA can be easily shown to be fake despite what you posted earlier on. You keep coming up with absurd suggestions for motivation to access this data. Have you ever heard of people trying to access information on fingerprints? There is no reason why DNA fingerprints should be any different.

Incompetence through loss, compounded by a lack of transparency. Under Irish law, there is no express obligation for a company that has lost customer data to notify anyone - neither the customer nor the Data Protection Commissioner.

So if there was some straightforward legislation introduced to make reporting of data loss mandatory, you'd suddenly be okay with DNA profiles?
Again, there is not one possible use of this STR information that I can imagine being of any use to anyone bar gardai trying to track down a criminal.
Besides, If I want a DNA sample from you like the ones that will be held on file, I literally just have to pick some of your chewing gum out of the bin or swab your coffee-cup. Breaking into the DNA holding centre or getting involved in some large scale elaborate bribery would be a bit excessive.

Two computer servers containing the records of almost 1m patients were stolen from the Children’s University hospital in Temple Street in 2007 and have never been recovered

I would like if you elaborated on what consequences you think this has. Medical and banking records carry real potential danger for corruption, unlike DNA profiles. So should we stop holding medical and banking records in case it happens again? Stop holding all records on file? Where does it end?
You can't come up with a single credible danger pertaining to th DNA database itself.

In fact most of your argument seems to be a direct copy and paste from this http://tjmcintyre.com/2009/06/bord-g.html, and doesn't really enagage with the immediate issue of DNA profiling at all.

A genetic sample can be used to develop a full profile, as well as markers.

It's not clear what you mean by this. DNA markers will not tell you anything about a person's medical health. It is an identifying procedure.

With Shell, You have a right to protest - and sampling? The guards could not sync the camera times during those protests, it would be interesting to see how they did with mass sampling. If there was a protest in Dublin that stopped traffic people could be arrested in relation to causing an obstruction, even non-involved people in the area.

No, you are wrong here. The only people who can be sampled under the legislation as planned are those who are arrested for an offence which if convicted, carries a minimum penalty of five years in prison.
Engaging in a peaceful protest does not carry that - or any - penalty.