| Kippreport.com

Do you think governments need your DNA profile to protect the public?

October 25, 2009 3:55 by Aarti Nagraj

The UAE government announced earlier this month that it intends to start collecting DNA samples from all its residents to help create a national DNA database. The project, the first of its kind in the world, will start within the next 12 months, Ahmed Marzooqi, chairman of the Emirates DNA Working Group, told The National. According to the paper, the country has only 5,000 DNA profiles, all belonging to criminals.

“This effort will help us as a team immensely in cases of natural and man-made disasters,” he said, adding that it could also be used for criminal cases. “This will control crime drastically. It will reduce the number of unnecessary and innocent suspects and reveal the criminal much faster with scientific proof.”

However, the database may require new legislation to be passed by the Federal National Council before it starts. “We are not sure if this will go through the Federal National Council or not,” Marzooqi said. “It could simply be decided as a security matter and not need the legislation of the FNC.”

But not everybody is convinced that the project is a good idea; 60 percent of the respondents to our poll said that the government does not need to collect DNA profiles to protect the public. Another 19 percent said that it depended on the crime.  Only 18 percent felt that the database was a necessity.

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Tags: database, DNA profiling, government, privacy, UAE