Law Commission of New Zealand Report on Use of DNA in Criminal Investigations

The Law Commission of New Zealand recently published a report on The Use of DNA in Criminal Investigations.

In New Zealand the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995 gives the Police powers to collect and use DNA in investigating crime. The Act also regulates two DNA databanks. These databanks store DNA information from individuals who have been charged with, or convicted of, certain offences. This information can then be compared to DNA collected from the scenes of unsolved crimes.

The Minister of Justice had asked the Law Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the Act. The purpose of the review is to determine whether the current legislation is fit for purpose and keeping pace with developments in forensic science, international best practice and public attitudes. 

The Commission recommends a new, comprehensive regime to control how DNA is obtained, used and retained for criminal investigations. Core recommendations include:

• Improving protections for adults from whom Police seek to obtain DNA by consent or on arrest.
• Requiring a court order to obtain DNA from suspects who are children or young people or who lack the ability to provide consent.
• Regulating the use of DNA where the current law is either silent or fragmented. This includes elimination sampling, mass screening, familial searching, and genetic genealogy searching.
• Establishing a single DNA databank to hold all DNA profiles obtained by Police with clear rules on how these DNA profiles can be used.
• Restricting the retention of offenders’ DNA profiles and aligning any retention of youth offender profiles more closely with the rehabilitative focus of the youth justice regime.
• Creating an independent mechanism for the assessment of new DNA analysis techniques and whether these should be approved for use.
• Improving oversight by increasing the role of the judiciary, establishing a new DNA Oversight Committee (with mandatory Māori representation), and providing for external auditing by the Independent Police Conduct Authority.