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Written question asked by Damian Green (Conservative) on Tuesday, 9 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 22 February 2010. It was answered by Alan Campbell (Labour) on Monday, 22 February 2010 on behalf of the Home Office.

DNA: Databases

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people from each ethnic minority had a profile stored on the National DNA Database on 1 January 2010.
Answer

The National DNA Database (NDNAD) does not hold self-reported ethnicity data, however, it does hold data on the "ethnic appearance" of persons who have a DNA profile on the database. The ethnic appearance data have six broad ethnic categories plus "unknown". They are based on the judgment of the police officer taking the sample and are recorded for police intelligence purposes to assist in subsequent identification.The following table shows the number of DNA profiles on the NDNAD added by English and Welsh police forces, broken down by ethnic appearance, as at 31 December 2009. "Unknown" means that no ethnic appearance was recorded by the officer taking the sample.The number of profiles held is not the same as the number of individuals. This is because some profiles are replicates—i.e. more than one profile is held for one individual. This may occur if, for example, an individual gives different names, or different versions of their name, on separate arrests. As at 31 December 2009, it was estimated that 13.9 per cent. of the subject profiles held on the entire NDNAD were replicates. As the replication rate is calculated across the entire database, it is not possible to apply it to the number of profiles of each ethnic appearance group to provide the number of individuals in that group.The data presented are based on a snapshot of the NDNAD as at 31 December 2009. The data on the NDNAD are constantly changing as records are added and removed, hence the figures are a snapshot of contents at a single point in time. The data are management information and have not been formally assessed for compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Ethnic appearance Subject profiles
Unknown 278,630
Asian 324,787
Black 449,288
Chinese/Japanese/SE Asian 39,979
Middle Eastern 46,987
White—North European 4,388,870
White—South European 112,695
Total profiles 5,641,236
Total individuals (estimated) 4,857,104

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
506 c350W; 317153
Session
2009-10
Subjects
Databases DNA
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk