Profiles of thousands of innocent people on national database will be removed as new freedoms bill scales back state intrusion
Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are to have their DNA profiles deleted from the national police database under the coalition's flagship civil liberties legislation published on Friday.
The protection of freedoms bill will also regulate the use of CCTV by the police and local authorities for the first time to ensure they are used "proportionately and appropriately".
Home Office ministers said the legislation was not intended to reduce the estimated 4 million CCTV cameras in use.
The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said it was landmark legislation that would restore hard-won civil liberties and result in an "unprecedented rolling back of the state".
The 146-page bill includes the reform of counter-terrorism legislation, including stop and search powers, the scaling back of local authority surveillance and the vetting and barring criminal record checks system, the end of fingerprinting of children in schools without parental consent, and the repeal of powers to hold serious fraud trials without a jury.
It also contains some quirky proposals such as relaxing matrimonial laws to allow people to marry outside the hours of 8am to 6pm and repealing the right of police officers to enter your home to search for German enemy property. The change in the marriage hours stems from suggestions on the government's Your Freedom website and is likely to trigger a mini-boom in evening wedding venues.
The Church of England was quick to point out it was unlikely that their vicars would soon be conducting midnight weddings as it would need a change in canon law, which was not within the government's power.
The Conservative home office minister, James Brokenshire, said the change was being made because it was no business of government to stop someone getting married at midnight if that is what they wanted.
The provisions to scale back Britain's national DNA database, which is the world's largest with more than 5 million profiles, comes after a ruling by the European court of human rights that the blanket retention of DNA from people arrested but never convicted of any offence was unlawful.
The proposals are based on the Scottish DNA system, which allows for the profiles and fingerprints of those charged of a serious offence to be kept for an initial period of three years with one possible two-year extension. The police will be banned from retaining the DNA of those arrested but not convicted of minor offences. The DNA profiles of most convicted criminals will be kept on the database indefinitely.
The single exception to this regime will be in cases involving unconvicted terror suspects who have been released. The current law allows their DNA to be kept for an initial period of six years plus possible two-year extensions. Under the new proposals the initial period will be reduced to three years.
Brokenshire said the changes should mean that "hundreds of thousands of innocent people" of the 1.1 million people without a conviction on the database would have their DNA profiles deleted. He indicated, however, they were likely to have to wait until the legislation reached the statute book later this year as the decision remains at the discretion of chief constables.
A fresh code of practice to be enforced by a new surveillance camera commissioner is to be introduced to regulate the use of CCTV and police automatic number plate recognition systems to ensure it is "appropriate and proportionate". Brokenshire said the measure was not intrinsically concerned with a reduction in the number of CCTV cameras in use.
Isabella Sankey, policy director at Liberty, the human rights group, said: "We welcome many aspects of the freedom bill, especially removing innocent people from the DNA database and tightening up stop and search powers. These measures respond to cases on behalf of ordinary Britons in the court of human rights. How ironic that Westminster's finest spent yesterday pouring bile on that same court."