Our Ref: KS/2009/00110 17 March 2009

Mr John Anderson

[FOI #7456 email]

Dear Mr Anderson,

REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT Reference No F-2009-00110

I write in connection with your request for information received on 2^nd February 2009. I note you seek access to the following information:

    As of the 4th of December 2008

     1: How many DNA and fingerprint samples of innocent people have deleted?

     2: How many innocent people requested their DNA and fingerprint samples be deleted?

3: If no DNA and fingerprint samples have been deleted i wish to know the reasons WHY as the UK Government have been found to be in breach of innocent peoples human rights and this would be considered a crime in itself.

4: As there is no right of appeal from a final decision made by the Grand Chamber when will your police force be routinely be deleting records of innocent people?

I am required by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act) to handle all requests in a manner that is blind to the identity of the requestor. Any information released in response to a request is regarded as being published, and therefore in the public domain without caveat.

In response to your questions, I have today decided to release the information requested in part as in general I can see no harm to any individual, the community, the police service or other bodies. After considering whether releasing this information will affect the good order and functioning of community, government or other public service affairs, I believe it is in the public's interest the information be released. The information lies within the arena of public safety and may provide common benefit to members of the community. Releasing this information will not identify any individual or compromise any court case, law enforcement or investigation.

With reference to your recent enquiry and in response to your question I can confirm the following:

Questions 1 and 2 - Unfortunately, the database systems at Bedfordshire Police could not categorise or differentiate between the removal of DNA and that of fingerprints from the database. Although, we can confirm that we have deleted 1 person's DNA samples since 4^th Dec 2008.

We can also confirm between Apr 03 and 4^th Dec 08, 10 DNA samples from Bedfordshire have been deleted from the National DNA Database (NDNAD). However, we were not able to determine why these were deleted so they may have been deleted at the request of the force or due to integrity issues.

In addition, we could not determine how many of these samples were from innocent or presumed innocent people. It was assessed to answer this part of your question in full, we consider retrieving this information to give you an accurate request figure relating to amount of requests for DNA deletion, by innocent people, would require a manual search of every record that may meet your criteria as well as trying to ascertain their presumed innocence.

Therefore, we consider that the cost of complying with this part of your request for information would exceed the appropriate limit of £450 as has been stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees & Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act.

It was not possible

Questions 3 and 4 - Please refer to the enclosed document which should provide an answer to these questions:

Documents Attached: Annex A European Court Ruling - 4dec08.doc

I hope this information proves useful.

Complaint Rights

Your attention is drawn to the attached sheet, which details your right of complaint.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in Bedfordshire Police.

Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter please do not hesitate to contact me quoting the above reference number.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Kevin Sharp

Information Services Officer