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Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I was quite attracted by the concept of the freedom to choose voluntarily to do something but in this case it leads us astray. History teaches us that, if there is a large amount of private information out there which a Government think is useful, they will acquire access to it. For example, the USA Patriot Act gives the American Government access to anything they want in the name of trying to fight terrorism. Therefore, these data will not necessarily be secure in perpetuity if someone sees a use for them. I have also learnt from history that governments who accumulate a large amount of information on their citizens end up using it to control the everyday lives of those citizens. For starters, you only have to look at communist Russia, watch ““Dr Zhivago””, or look at East Germany, Albania or all sorts of places, where, at the end of the day, these things are used to control behaviours. I am sorry but I do not trust the people who end up in charge of these things. We need to look 10, 20 or 30 years ahead and we do not know who will be in control then. Perversely, as a result, it does not necessarily protect citizens. It is not as if this will give an automatic one-to-one match. It would do what this Bill is trying to prevent. The Bill is trying to protect us from the Government trying to accumulate large amounts of data. DNA of course is not infallible. Ultimately, it is vulnerable to contamination of samples and laboratory error. It is only an approximate match; it is not a one-to-one match the whole time. Therefore, there will be errors which could be misused. I think that this amendment concerns a bigger subject and should be left out of the Bill. It does not fit with it.