Retaining DNA and the Supreme Court case of Gaughran

July 8, 2015

In the lead article of this week’s Criminal Law & Justice Weekly, Kristiina Reed discusses the Supreme Court decision in Gaughran (Gaughran (Appellant) v Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (Respondent) (Northern Ireland) [2015] UKSC 29.

The judgment of the court held that the retention of DNA profiles of convicted adult offenders may represent a breach of an individual’s right to privacy, but that retention is both necessary and proportionate. It remains open to debate however whether the same proportionality analysis can be equally applied to convicted youth offenders.

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