The national DNA database, the world's largest at five million profiles, is to have a six-year retention limit placed upon it in line with EU law.
DNA fingerprinting is an enormously powerful tool in the battle against crime but the great danger is its perceived infallibility.
The CSI factor plays a big part in our faith in the system but the facts show that less than one per cent of crime is solved by the use of DNA.
As with all science the most likely errors are caused by humans. While that is always going to be the case, we must treat DNA evidence as just part of an investigation and not a golden bullet of justice.
The danger of having a database any older than a few years is that collection techniques may not match the quality of matching techniques.
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