Illustration by Jordan Pote

Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry alleged…

The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight…

The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as “an ‘alien wedge’ of criminality”…

The chairman of the commission, Prof Jonathan Montgomery, said: “It’s now become pretty routine to take DNA samples on arrest. So large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they’ve been arrested.”

He said the commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. “It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained,” said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.

This is a chilling admission of how far – everything that civil liberties campaigners feared – has come. A cabal of neo-Nazi police superintendents wasn’t required. Dopey useless politicians – not slimey right-wing nationalists – provided the framework.

There’s even a bit of techno-jargon to cover the process. Function creep.