Published June 13, 2007
Trial and Error, Stockholm – Everyone born in Sweden since 1975 is registered in a large DNA file, and voices are raised that the police should have a DNA register over everyone living in Sweden.
My previous post on how clean and supervised Sweden is also reminded me on the PKU file:
The PKU file is located at the Karolinska University hospital in Stockholm. It was started in 1975 for medical research and everyone born since then is registered at birth. The file became more publicly known in 2003 when a popular politician was murdered and the file was used to identify her killer. It was also used in 2004 to identify the many victims of the tsunami in Thailand.
That is all very well, and the PKU laboratory claim that they have no contact with the police and that they dont even know how many blood samples they have. But after 2004 high politicians and the police are increasingly advocating a police DNA file, where everyone living in Sweden should be included (nine million). ”It is irresponsible not to use new technology to solve crimes”, they say and continues ”If we are all registered, nobody is descriminated”.
It is possible to have your DNA removed from the PKU file. The only problem is it has been suggested that the people who does so should be registered since they most likely are criminals. And the legal situation is unclear. Does the Penal code (regulating the laws on crime) outweight the Biobank law (regulating the DNA bank)? And if it does, could the parents who make their childrens DNA availible for sience, instead have registered their children for the police?
Finally, the Point of View-website as DNA, made on web2dna:
Assorted links (most in Swedish): Register those who dont want to be registered, and web2dna