Jennifer Watson*
The creation of DNA databases for criminal investigative purposes sparks debates about moral and legal issues related to violations of human rights. The practice demonstrates how the right to freedom, or the freedom to make a choice, is one of the human rights that can be abused when building such a database. The right to freedom is used to describe a person's ability to freely choose whether or not to be sampled for a DNA test when building databases. When creating a database on a general population level, the need for prior consent from the subject is implied by their right to freedom and respect for their own self-determination. This is not a situation where databases are established from criminal suspects who are compelled to submit to mandatory DNA sample collection. When it comes to criminal prosecution, legal regulations accept the police's obligation and authorization to collect samples for personal or criminalistic identification, analyse, preserve, and discard obtained personal information. The subject's written consent is not required in these circumstances. But regardless of whether the personal information will be used or not, we should be aware that the process of capturing and collecting it by national institutions might have a direct impact on the subject's privacy. In order to achieve a fair balance between public and private interests, the consent form may be revised, and the person providing the biological material will be explicitly informed of the uses to which his genetic information will be put, the length of time his DNA will be subjected to additional automated processing, and the steps and conditions necessary to have his DNA profile removed from the national DNA databases.