The DNA of a baby under the age of one has been stored on the national DNA database, Liberal Democrat research has revealed. Jacqui Smith was forced into the shocking admission in response to a Parliamentary Question from Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne.

The Home Secretary told Mr Huhne that “as at November 26 2008, the youngest person with a profile on the NDNAD was aged under one year and the oldest was over 90 years old.” An outraged Mr Huhne responded saying it was “ludicrous” that a baby should be put on the database. “It is illegal, immoral and ineffective to keep the DNA of a baby on a national police database as if they had committed some felony.”

The illiberal database, the world’s largest, contains nearly five million samples, including profiles from over 800,000 innocent people. Innocent people are held on the database because the Government changed the law to allow DNA samples to be taken on arrest and retained indefinitely, even if suspects are acquitted and even if they are never charged. However, as even the Daily Mail points out, as the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is ten, there can be no circumstances in which it is appropriate for a baby’s DNA to be stored. Mr. Huhne called for the record to be destroyed immediately.

The Government’s baby admission comes after Liberal Democrat research revealed that there more than 2.3 million convicted criminals not on the DNA database. Yet at the same time, 850,000 people who have no criminal record languish on the database. Critics of the database point out children have been disproportionately targeted. Since the database was created, an astonishing 1.1 million children have had their DNA taken and stored, almost a quarter of the total records.

Chris Huhne has attacked the Government for making children the “soft target of a random DNA policy.” He said it was “ludicrous to be randomly adding DNA samples from individuals who can represent no conceivable criminal threat when there are 2.3 million convicted criminals whose DNA is not on the database.”

Following the damning ruling from the European Court of Human Rights in December in the case of S and Marper, the Home Secretary pledged to take ‘immediate steps’ to remove all children under ten from the database. It is yet to be seen whether the Government will honour that commitment. The Liberal Democrats believe that innocent people should be removed from the DNA database, as should the DNA of children. The Liberal Democrats will continue to pressurise the Government into implementing the European Court’s ruling that keeping innocent people’s DNA indefinitely contravenes the right to privacy.