REAL LIFE NEWS: DNA GUN TAGS SUSPECTS
by Hazed
A UK firm has come up with a new gadget that will be a boon to repressive regimes everywhere. It’s a DNA tagging system that fires a small pellet at people, which then leaves a synthetic DNA trace mark so that authorities will later be able to confirm the identity of a suspect. It can penetrate clothes to deposit its mark on the skin, and presumably it’s hard to wash off.
On the plus side, this will be very useful to police forces confronted with rioters, like those that rampaged through British cities a few years back. So what could possibly be a problem?
Well, consider the sinister side of the new technology. Even if the police force in question are merely over-zealous or careless, the dangers to civil liberties are immense. Suppose there’s a peaceful protest - like a march against an unpopular government policy, or the Occupy protests last year. Now, it’s possible that a couple of idiots get carried away, or deliberately decide to cause trouble, and start to smash windows or attack cars.
The police respond by spraying the crowd with these DNA tags - and this indiscriminate use tags everyone on the peaceful protest as a criminal.
In other words, a DNA tag won’t prove that somebody committed a crime. All it can do is prove they were present when the tags were fired.
That’s bad enough, but there are plenty of countries where the authorities frown upon even peaceful protests. Using this technology they would be able to find out at a later date just who attended a demonstration. Even the threat of DNA tagging could act as a chilling effect and make people too wary to protest.
I foresee a great many problems should this technology be deployed!
Source: http://blogs.cio.com/hardware/17772/dna-gun-tags-rioters-future-arrest
