Dr. Nessa Lynch:

I endorse everything Dr. Murray has said on the non-convicted information and I add to that ensuring that it operates on a principled basis in line with the rules for collection and retention of other biometrics such as DNA and fingerprints as the same ideas apply. When someone has been convicted, there is obviously an understanding in international human rights law that that places some restrictions on a person but that does not apply to suspects, victims of crime, voluntary sources and open source intelligence.

I know from various reviews I have done with police and the creakiness of police information technology systems that I would not be overly worried at this stage about the ability to do a broad-based search but technology will improve. It is important, therefore, to lay down those rules now.

I agree with the points made about the passport and driving licence databases because people have given over that data for a particular purpose. I contemplate, as might the European regulation, that this for very extreme circumstances such as a significant threat of terrorism or national security where there could be some sort of exception but, certainly, broad-based searches of other national databases should be explicitly ruled out.