by Our Foreign Desk

POLICE in Northern Ireland will retain the DNA and fingerprints of more than 100,000 innocent people in defiance of a European court ruling, it was announced yesterday.

Material in Britain was destroyed following a landmark decision by the European Court of Human Rights against holding the biometric information of the innocent indefinitely.

In Northern Ireland, DNA and fingerprints taken from an arrested person may be retained indefinitely, irrespective of whether the person is convicted of any offence or not.

In 2008, the European court ruled in the case of IS and Marper v UK that this blanket and indiscriminate retention policy breached the right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Stormont legislation complying with the ruling is due to come into force on October 31.

But the six counties’ government will allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to keep copies of the data, ostensibly to help investigate crimes committed during the Troubles.

Senior detectives are preparing to establish a unit dedicated to probing almost 1,000 unsolved “cold cases” from the 30-year conflict.

The policy prompted criticism from the left, with Communist Party of Ireland executive committee member Joe Bowers saying: “The state should comply with the European court’s decision on DNA and Northern Ireland shouldn’t be treated differently from the rest of the UK.”