Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): I welcome, from Forensic Science Northern Ireland (FSNI), Alison McElveen, chief executive; Stephen Campbell, director of laboratory services; and Ian Craig, head of biology. You are welcome to the meeting, folks. Apologies that we are running slightly behind, but we had a lot to get through with the Minister, and we still did not get through it all. Thank you very much for your forbearance; we are glad to have you with us. We received your written submission, which is helpful, and we will have questions for you. I will hand over to you to make your opening remarks, and we will take it from there.

Ms Alison McElveen (Forensic Science Northern Ireland): I will keep it brief, Chair. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to come to the Committee. This is a first for me and, I think, for the agency. We want to tell you about the services that Forensic Science provides and the preparatory work that we have been involved in ahead of the enactment of the Justice Bill. You introduced my two technical colleagues, Chair, and, to be honest, I will look right and left when the technical questions come in.

FSNI is very much an operational organisation. It is all about the science. Our role is to provide objective, scientific advice and support to enhance justice. The Department of Justice has led on the development of the legislation on biometric retention periods, and we have fed into that to inform the Department about our processes and to make sure that they can be taken on board. We will ensure that we support and deliver the implementation of the legislation, whatever that may be.

We provided in the written briefing detail on our role in operating and managing the Northern Ireland DNA database. It is important to stress, even at this early stage, that profile deletion will occur only when we receive notifications. The PSNI will notify us, and we will delete those profiles.

I am happy to take any questions that you may have. If anything comes up that we have not prepared for or do not have with us, we will certainly take that away and provide more detail. We are also happy to offer the Committee a visit to the laboratory, if that would help you to understand the scientific processes that we undertake.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): That would be phenomenal. Thank you very much indeed, Alison. That would be really appreciated by those of us who are anoraks. I am certainly one.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you very much, panel. I am delighted that you have had your first opportunity to present to the Committee. I do not know if it will be one of many, but thank you for coming along.

As a citizen, I was not aware of the work that you do, so my first question is this: are citizens in the North fully aware of their rights on the appropriate and proportionate retention of their data, which you process?

Ms McElveen: They are probably not very aware of us as an agency. We are not very public-facing. We are in the background, doing the science and providing information that informs investigations. As a citizen and even from speaking to family members, I suggest that people are probably not aware. Offenders or those whose DNA has been taken may be more aware of the processes than the general population.

Mr Stephen Campbell (Forensic Science Northern Ireland): When a sample is taken, a declaration is made. It is discussed with the individual at the time of sampling. The PSNI or the custody officer explains what the DNA sample is for and how it will be used in speculative searches of the Northern Ireland and national DNA systems. As Alison rightly said, the service is probably more for people who are being sampled than for the general public.

Ms McElveen: We are probably all aware of the 'CSI' effect. There are lots of such programmes on TV, and, in general, people are interested in forensics. It is not as sexy as it appears on TV, I have to add. Some areas are much more technical than others. The recovery of evidence is a laborious, labour-intensive process. When it comes to the DNA profile, the process becomes much more technical. People are informed by what they see on TV, however.

Ms Ferguson: I have two more questions, if that is OK. Will you take us through the process of deletion? How does it work in practice? How does it take into account the existence of different databases with different retention and disposal schedules? How does that happen? Do you envisage any improvements or challenges arising from the introduction of the new retention and deletion schedules?

As you know, the Justice Bill does not clearly define biometric data beyond fingerprints and DNA and does not explicitly include custody photos. Is the Justice Bill's definition of biometric material sufficiently clear?

Ms McElveen: I will start with the latter point. I watched the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner give evidence two weeks ago. He talked about whether, once a photograph is turned into a biometric image, it is searchable on a database.

I think that Ireland also considers photographs. I understand that the Department is looking at that being dealt with separately, rather than through the Bill. We do not hold photographs on our databases — we may have the odd scene photograph in a file or something like that — so that is not a biometric that we will need to deal with.

I mentioned deletion in our briefing paper. We do not delete and will not do so until retention periods are agreed. Currently, we delete the odd profile, and Ian or Stephen could maybe touch on the circumstances in which that would happen. It will only be when retention periods are agreed and we get notification to delete, however, that we will. We are concentrating on ensuring that our systems are capable of responding to mass deletion and, after that, to deletions every month, or whatever frequency we receive as an instruction from the PSNI.

Ms Ferguson: Do you face any challenges with your current system?

Ms McElveen: No, because we are not doing any significant deletions at the moment, but we know that the system needs to be developed to do that. That is the part that we are working on: we are making sure that our system is developed so that it will be able to comply with the Bill.

Ms Ferguson: I am curious. You mentioned that there are currently a few deletions. What would those be? I am asking because I know that you hold the material indefinitely at the minute.

Mr Campbell: We would probably see only about a dozen a year coming through the agency. As Alison explained, there is indefinite retention, at the moment, subject to the Bill being enacted. In reality, however, instruction and notification is received from the PSNI biometrics unit. Following that, our relationship is one of messaging between the local DNA database and the national DNA database. As you know, when we produce a subject DNA profile — by that I mean DNA extracted from an individual or a known source — it is loaded onto the Northern Ireland DNA database and subsequently the national database. When we receive a deletion request from the PSNI, we delete from the local database and request a deletion from the national database. That deletion is then confirmed by the national database in a deletion request report.

Ms Ferguson: You said that there were about 12. Why would you get a request to delete?

Mr Campbell: Normally, that comes through the PSNI process: the biometric ratification committee (BRC). Quite often, an individual will request that their DNA profile be deleted. That will be considered by the BRC, which sits within the police. Should it be deemed appropriate to do so, we would be instructed to delete that profile both locally and from the national systems.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you.

Miss Hargey: Thanks. I will follow up on that. I imagine that a good lot of these questions will be for the police, because they are the first step in the process. Your paper indicates that the Bill will have an immediate impact if it goes through, with thousands of deletions. I am seeking an understanding of the difference between the different datasets and databases. It would be easy to manage that in the North, but, as you said, there is also the national database. I am not sure whether there is also an international database for some of the work on child trafficking and other issues. If our retention periods differ from those of England, Scotland and Wales and we request a deletion, is it your understanding that the deletion would happen in those other databases and that they will come back and confirm that?

Mr Campbell: That is correct.

Miss Hargey: Are you aware of any circumstances under which they would reject such a request?

Mr Campbell: No, absolutely not. It is the PSNI's data, essentially. Once we put in a deletion request, that deletion is actioned by the national DNA database.

Miss Hargey: OK. That is the way that it works at the moment.

Mr Campbell: Absolutely.

Miss Hargey: And is that how you envisage that it would work in the new —?

Mr Campbell: Yes, that is the case even for the small number of deletions that we do at the moment. When we move to bulk deletions, the process will essentially be the same.

Miss Hargey: Ultimately, the owner of the data, even if that data is in the national database, is this jurisdiction.

Mr Campbell: That is correct.

Miss Hargey: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): May I just follow up on that one? Ultimately, then, it will not make any difference if the other databases have a different time frame from ours. If it is Northern Ireland's DNA data, and we say that we want it deleted, it will be gone.

Mr Campbell: That is correct.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): OK. Thank you.

May I check something else? When the new legislation is commenced, do you envisage any circumstances in which the police would say, "Delete this", and you would say, "No"?

Mr Campbell: Absolutely not. To be honest, the instruction from the PSNI is clear. We really have no information to suggest why we would not delete a profile if its deletion was requested. It really is a binary action.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): The police do not give you a reason why not or anything of that nature.

Mr Campbell: Often, we get little information. All that we really need is a unique identifier for that sample and the instruction to delete. Then, we follow that through locally and nationally.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): For them to do that, does the instruction come from one person, or is it the case that a number of people have to sign off on that?

Mr Campbell: It generally comes from the PSNI biometrics unit. Again, I am not totally au fait with its current process for sign-off. The BRC, obviously, has a big role in signing off profiles for deletion.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): I want to check that, and we will follow it up with the police, just on the basis that there is potential for corruption. I am not suggesting that people would be corrupt, but there is potential. I would like to see gaps closed where they exist.

Ms McElveen: There is potential for error. With regard to retention periods, we do not have access to criminal records or anything like that, so it is not our role to second-guess whether something should be deleted. It is quite complex. There are quite a lot of different deletion periods and stuff like that. Effectively, we just need to make sure that, if we are asked, we will do it. Then, we need to make sure that our system is robust in that regard. We will give the police confirmation back. We will provide notification that what they have asked us to do has been done.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Danny, do you want in on that point?

Mr Baker: No.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Deirdre, do you want in?

Miss Hargey: On that point, if the Bill progresses, you will see thousands of deletion requests. Will there be a capacity issue? I do not know whether that is primarily an issue for the police. What impact will it have on you? Have you looked through that, working with the Department?

Mr Campbell: Do you mean for the actual DNA profiles?

Miss Hargey: Doing the deletion of stuff.

Mr Campbell: There will be an IT solution to deal with bulk deletions. We will make sure that we have some sort of file transfer process in place with the PSNI. It will articulate the profiles that it wants to be deleted. That simply could not happen manually, so we are currently working with our incumbent supplier to look at some sort of software solution to allow that to happen.

Miss Hargey: What about a delay as regards the national databases? You do not envisage anything if the solution —.

Mr Campbell: It may be a couple of days.

Miss Hargey: Knock-on.

Mr Campbell: Yes. If we approached the national DNA database and asked it to delete 40,000 profiles within 24 hours, that may be a challenge for it. Again, we will work through that end-to-end process. In reality, it might take it a couple or three days to delete that level of profiles.

Miss Hargey: It does not need to develop an additional system. You believe that the capacity or systems are in place for that.

Mr Campbell: It is already in place.

Ms McElveen: It is already deleting in England and Wales. Of course, it perhaps getting 40,000 requests from us on day 1 is the sort of thing that we will have to work through. That is the process. We will have those conversations. Stephen attends the Forensic Information Databases Service (FINDS) board and is on the PSNI biometrics project board that has just been set up to develop the mechanisms and systems for doing that. We will need to make sure that, when we get a message from the PSNI, our system is able to deal with it. Obviously, we will be involved in any user acceptance testing, which is done in a safe environment before it goes live, to ensure that it works. We are already looking at that. Our system is specialist. It is supplied by a local company. Is it still called " Equiniti"?

Mr Campbell: ITS.

Ms McElveen: It changes its name every few months. That company supplies services for us to maintain our database. We have been telling it, in a broad-brush specification, what we will need. It is already looking at that. Irrespective of the retention periods — that is not relevant to us — it is about the kind of deletion. We need to be able to do the deletions from the system and confirm that they have been done.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Previously, when biometric provisions were passed by the Assembly, they were not commenced, because the PSNI needed a better and updated IT system and was not going to be able to deliver it. Is the PSNI's system for that different from yours? Do you have distinct system requirements, and will your system also need to be updated and changed?

Mr Campbell: We are fortunate in that all that we are looking for is a single message from the PSNI: "Delete". It is a binary.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Is that it? With regard to your process, does everything remain the same for you?

Mr Campbell: I cannot speak on behalf of the PSNI, but its systems will be much more complex in dealing with the retention schedules associated with the Bill. There is no doubt about that.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): For you, though, no change.

Mr Campbell: A simple message.

Ms Ferguson: Will there be any change? Are you future-proofing the system in relation to biometrics and various types of data? What biometric data do you currently hold? I am thinking of voice and facial recognition. Will your current system be able to cope with those in the future?

Mr Campbell: It will not. The Northern Ireland DNA database is integrated with our DNA management system. It is integrated with the software that we use to generate DNA profiles as well. It is not purely a local database. Lots of different system functionality is built into it.

We are going out to procure a new system over the next four years, but it will be for keeping DNA profiles and, obviously, the system functionality that we currently have and want to expand. There will be nothing further in that particular system development.

Ms McElveen: On your point, we do not do gait or CCTV analysis. Those are not services that we provide.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Yours are essentially samples, is that right?

Ms McElveen: Yes. With regard to biometrics, we do DNA, and we have what you could say are fingerprints, but we do not have a fingerprints database. We recover fingerprints, but we provide those to the PSNI, and they go onto its database. As a laboratory, we do not offer those other services, currently anyway.

Mr Baker: Recently, representatives from the Information Commissioner's Office gave evidence to the Committee in which they stated that children were in a more vulnerable position when it came to biometric data and that extra safeguards were required to protect their rights. What measures do you have in place to make sure that that is the case?

Mr Campbell: We currently have nothing in place. Our system is simple. The sample is submitted, we profile that sample and then add it to the local and national DNA databases. At the moment, we have approximately 25,000 individuals below the age of 18 residing on the local and national systems.

Ms McElveen: All that we do is upload the profiles that we are asked to upload. We have the ability to pull information from the system, so we were able to check, in advance of coming here, how many were considered children or youths at the time of sampling. That is cumulative. The database has been in operation since 1996, so we are nearly 30 years in, and those subjects are maybe no longer youths or children. However, they will be deleted like anybody else, which is why it is much more complex for the police. If the legislation stipulates specific retentions for children, and it is much shorter than the 25/50/75-year model, it will be down to the police to comply with whatever the retention periods are. Then, they just tell us who to delete, and we will delete them.

We could go back at a later stage to see how many youths or children profiles we were still holding. Clearly, not many are going on the system. Given time, we could do a bit of analysis to see whether a lot of that was in the early days and whether we were still getting them. I heard the Minister talk about potential exclusions for 10- to 14-year-olds, so probably fewer children are being caught up in the system now. If there was something specific that you wanted, we could see whether we could pull information.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): You said that you heard the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner two weeks ago. He raised an interesting point about source DNA. Under the Bill, once a DNA profile was extracted, the source material would be destroyed. He thought that that could be a lost opportunity for the future.

As the technology advances, if you do not have the source material, you may not be able to do things that you could have done, had you had it. Do you have a view on that? Can you elaborate on what that might look like?

Mr Ian Craig (Forensic Science Northern Ireland): Once a person's DNA is taken, we carry out the standard DNA17, which is the profiling system that we use at the moment, and that is added to the database. There are other DNA technologies out there at the moment, such as the Y-chromosome short tandem repeat (Y-STR), which was recently introduced and involves looking only at a male's DNA. It is especially relevant and important in sexual offences against women. If you destroy the original DNA sample, you cannot carry out any subsequent testing because the sample is, in effect, gone. You can retain the sample if it is taken under the CPIA legislation. You are allowed to retain that sample for —.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): You need to help us out with that one, Ian.

Mr Campbell: It is the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Thank you.

Mr Craig: On certain offences, that allows you to retain the DNA — the source DNA, as you called it — until the case has been resolved. That allows subsequent testing should that be required in that particular case.

Ms McElveen: May I add to that? The source DNA may often have been recovered from an item. We get exhibits in the laboratory, such as bloody garments and so on, to see whether we can recover DNA in order to get a profile. We do not retain exhibits. Once we have completed our work, those exhibits go back to the police. Obviously, however, there is a lot of legacy work as well, which has gone on in the past. Often, what happens is that those items will be retained and might come to us again at a later stage because we have a much more sensitive type of DNA procedure available that allows us to see whether we can recover any DNA. It is a very fast-paced area of science and is constantly moving.

Mr Craig: The main difference is between source DNA, as in the DNA from the subject, which the Bill covers, and source DNA that we refer to as crime scene DNA, which is recovered from exhibits or from the crime scene itself. When we get a DNA profile from a crime scene, that will not be destroyed. It will be retained because it is not covered under the Bill. The Bill covers only the subject DNA, which is what would be deleted. DNA that is recovered from crime scenes is retained by the organisation to allow for continued investigations, appeals or requests from the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

Miss Hargey: Do you retain the objects, or are they retained by the police?

Mr Craig: The police retain the items. We retain the profile that was developed from an item.

Mr Campbell: May I build on Ian's point? The CPIA approach, which Ian referred to, is already in place. We have been working through that regime since 2019. If an investigating officer or a sampling officer does not identify a particular item as a CPIA item — in other words, to keep it for further potential testing — the sample that does not carry that flag is destroyed after six weeks. That is the regime that we are currently working under. We have had to re-engineer a lot of our processes in order to take that into account. Significantly more storage is required to retain samples for longer if they have been flagged under CPIA. That process exists at the moment.

Ms Ferguson: There is just one other thing. You mentioned some numbers — you said that there were 25,000 young people under 18 on DNA databases. I want to ask about subject profiles. People can be arrested on numerous occasions and have their DNA taken on every occasion. When you talk about subject profiles, is that one subject profile per individual or could it potentially be taken from 10 different occasions?

Mr Campbell: It used to be that people were sampled a lot, and it was a PSNI and, to be honest, a UK-wide initiative to move to a single sample. Essentially, when we generate a DNA17 profile for a subject, no matter how many times you profile that individual, the profile will remain the same. Should an individual be brought into a custody suite, if DNA has already been taken and a profile has been generated, they do not necessarily have a second sample taken. What might be done is to re-life any tariff associated with that DNA profile held on a database. That reduces the costs associated with repeatedly producing a DNA profile when that result does not change.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Are there no processes through which your DNA can change, including a transplant —

Ms Ferguson: Fingers cut.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): — or blood —?

Ms McElveen: Ian cannot wait to answer that one.

Mr Campbell: He would like to have a go at that.

Mr Craig: The reality is that, on extremely rare occasions, usually related to a bone marrow transplant, a different DNA profile can be expressed in the individual. Usually, they will express their original DNA profile in some tissues, but they might express the new DNA profile in different tissues. The cells of the cheek, which is often where you get the DNA sample from, might be your original DNA profile, but your blood could give the profile of the bone marrow donor. The expression of that bone marrow profile can vary. Sometimes it can build up, and sometimes it can fade away. In my experience in the lab of over 30 years, I am not aware of any case in the UK where that has been an issue. I am aware of instances across the world where that has occurred, but I think that it is on one or two occasions where that has proven to be an issue.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Again, it is back to the true crime anoraks and enthusiasts among us who love all that.

Mr Craig: Technically speaking, if you were watching 'CSI', it would happen all the time. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): The perfect crime.

Mr Craig: In reality, it has never, that I have been aware of, been a factor in any UK or Ireland case.

Miss Hargey: That is on the DNA sample. Could fingerprints be different, potentially?

Ms McElveen: Fingerprints are wholly different. Everybody's are unique. It is just with identical twins that DNA will be the same.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): I have one further question. You have already identified 40,000 samples that, you think, will have to be deleted, and then you anticipate around 500 a month. How and on what basis have you identified those?

Mr Campbell: On the basis of discussions with the PSNI. When the police applied a blanket kind of view of the data that they held, that showed in and around 40,000 initial profiles to be deleted. With the tariffs in place with the new Bill, we did a ready reckoner on what we were likely to see month on month. That is where those figures were derived from. It was from the PSNI's estimates.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): OK, so we should ask the PSNI how it came to those figures.

Mr Campbell: Yes.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): That is helpful.

Ms McElveen: We have about 225,000 subject samples on our database currently. We deal with an awful lot of serious crime, and we have been running the DNA database only since 1996. If we are looking at a 75-year retention period for serious crime, an awful lot of our profiles will not be impacted on immediately.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): That is fair enough.

That is me done. Does anybody have anything else?

Miss Hargey: This is not to do with the Justice Bill. How do young people access or find out about employment and training opportunities at the forensic science lab?

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Are you looking for your next career?

Miss Hargey: No, it is not for me. It is for young people.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): She is asking for a friend. [Laughter.]

Ms McElveen: We were at a careers fair at a school in Carrick this morning. We get a lot of requests for work experience. You have to be counter terrorist check (CTC) cleared to be on our site, and, obviously, we are dealing with sensitive information. We would do nothing but work experience if we facilitated that, honestly, given the number of requests that we get. We want to go out more and provide more information. We have done a lot of schools, and we have done universities. In particular, we are trying to do our bit to promote STEM. We received an email from the head of the chemistry section at Queen's thanking us so much for coming in to help because it is starting to see its numbers go up.

People think that you do a forensic science degree, but a forensic science degree is very general; there is very little science in it. That is not what we want: we want chemists. Given the increase in drugs, toxicology and such things, that is a big area for us. Biology is all about chemistry. We are clear about our requirements. We do a lot of outreach. Perhaps there is a school that you want us to come to. There are opportunities for our staff, who get to develop their communication skills and presentation skills, so it is a win-win. Some of the sections can take out some equipment to look a wee bit more like 'CSI', but some of the others do not come across as well.

Miss Hargey: It is about pathways. Queen's and other universities create pathways into the legal profession, including looking at apprenticeships. Are you exploring such things in the pipeline of talent?

Mr Campbell: It is about where you want to enter the organisation. We have lots of opportunities at the junior level, which is assistant scientific officer. As the evidence shows, we run pretty much annual competitions for staff at that grade, and we attract a high number of applications. We are also running a scientific officer competition this year. That will go through the public press, the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) and recruitment websites. We really try to promote recruitment. The challenge is with retention. We see a lot of people come into the organisation, but it is tough and challenging work. In the past few years, we have struggled to retain staff at the junior level.

Ms McElveen: We have considered apprenticeships, but it is not easy to introduce those types of things. We are not struggling to attract candidates for the assistant scientific officer posts; you need only O-level science at that level. They can then work their way up on the laboratory side of the house. When it comes to reporting officers, who go to court, that is at degree level; a science degree is required.

We have found some challenges with some specialist areas. We have a road traffic collision team, which goes to every fatal road traffic collision. Those staff are engineers, so we are looking for mechanical engineers. I chaired three back-to-back competitions. People are not queuing up to apply for those jobs, but that could be because of the nature of the job and the fact that you probably do not think that, after doing an engineering degree, that is where you will go. I am sure that you will hear that pay is a challenge as well. Engineers are paid quite well. However, I hope that the two imminent pay rises might make that a bit more attractive.

Miss Hargey: That is great. Thank you.

Ms Ferguson: This is nothing to do with the Bill, but I am keen on genealogy and have volunteered my DNA. From an income-generation point of view, have you ever considered any other —

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Private work?

Ms Ferguson: — private work to —?

Mr Campbell: To be honest, it would not pay us. We looked at that at one stage. All the DNA profiling that we do is non-coding, so, bar gender, it tells you nothing physically about the individual. We looked at it from an income-generation persecutive, but it would take a considerable amount of time to set up such a work stream. There are companies out there at the moment that are dedicated to that particular activity and —

Ms Ferguson: They are cleaning up.

Mr Campbell: — are cleaning up. That is probably the best way in which to put it.

Ms McElveen: There are too many in the market, and their processes are very streamlined. However, we have done private work.

Mr Craig: Under the Human Tissue Act 2004, we are allowed to carry DNA only in relation to criminal investigations. We would need our allowances under the Human Tissue Act to be expanded to allow us to do that for any other reason.

Ms McElveen: We have done some income-generation work in the past. We have done work for Pakistan and Poland, but it tends to be one-off consultancy-type work.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Folks, thank you very much. You have been very generous, even going beyond the Bill. I trust that that demonstrates the Committee's interest in the work that you do. It has been lovely to have you with us. I trust that your first time here has not been too bad and that, hopefully, we will see you again. Thank you very much for your offer of a visit. I am fairly certain that we would really enjoy that and that we will take you up on that at some stage.

Ms McElveen: We are building a new lab. It is a huge investment. We are working on the full business case at the moment and are pretty confident that it will proceed. It will be massive. At the time of opening, it will probably be the best lab in Europe. It is a few years away, but you could come now and then come back.

The Chairperson (Ms Bunting): Thank you very much indeed, folks. All the very best.