British call made for universal DNA bank

LONDON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A senior British appeal court judge has called for the entire population and all visitors to the country to have their DNA stored in a national database.

Lord Justice Stephen Sedley said the 12-year-old database used in England and Wales skews civil rights, the BBC reported.

"It means where there is ethnic profiling going on, disproportionate numbers of ethnic minorities get onto the database," the judge said. "It also means that a great many people who are walking the streets and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free."

There are some 4 million DNA profiles in the database and the Home Office said it grows by about 30,000 profiles a month as police enter new suspects into the system. In Scotland, DNA samples taken must be destroyed if the individual isn't charged or convicted.

As the English and Welsh system stands, about 5.2 percent of the population are on file. By race, nearly 40 percent of black men are on file, 13 percent of Asian men and 9 percent of white men, the report said.