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Security & Intelligence - in brief (2)

01 November 1998

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UK: More business for Forensic Science Service: Jack Straw has announced that the Forensic Science Service (FSS) is to be converted to a trading fund. He cited "the interests of the improved efficiency and effectiveness of the management of the FSS". In practise this decentralisation in the financial management of the FSS will allow it make long-term investments in research and development; to further enhance its links with private IT companies and promote the sale of its technology and services. The FSS is custodian of the national DNA database, the system architecture of which the FBI has recently announced plans to replicate. Touting itself as a "world renowned research and development facility", the FSS may do rather well out of their DNA profiling technology. In April, a UK Presidency report of the Police Cooperation Working Group to the EU's Justice and Home Affairs Council on the implementation of the 1997 resolution on the exchange of DNA analyses noted that only 4 member states have working databases and 8 were "in the process of establishing one within the next two years" (see Statewatch European Monitor, Vol 1, no 1). FSS Press Release, 20.10.98.

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