Counter-Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for rereading the ACPO guidelines, which I mentioned. However, we are perhaps missing the point entirely. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that anyone who is on the database has access to guidelines that will tell them how to get off the database. There is only one way of getting off it at the moment, according to the ACPO guidelines, which is to be involved in a case in which you have been accused of murder but it transpires that the dead person died by some other means. That is not a happy example; there may be better ones. The principle goes back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and I said. Those who are innocent should not be on any database. They should not be under the eye of the law of this country. They are innocent. They have no truck with the law and their DNA should not passed to Europe for whatever reason simply because it is a chunk of information that the police hold. The Information Commissioner is there for data protection. He is not there to tell people how to get themselves off a database that they should not be on in the first place. I do not think that that will help us at all. I do not think that further clarity on the ACPO guidelines will help us either. All that says is that it will take an absolutely extraordinary exception to get off the database. I do not know—I suspect that many do not know—what the public believe is the situation. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, I suspect they think that if you have had your DNA and fingerprints taken but are found innocent and cease being involved in any sort of criminal inquiry, that will be the end of it, the material will be gone, finished, over. But it is not gone, finished or over by any means. You are still on that database. If you cannot remain tranquil, calm and unaffected about it, you will get very mad indeed in trying to get yourself off it. The Minister says that these clauses are to do with counterterrorism and the counterterrorism database but, as we know from the asset-freezing provision, one bit of legislation can be used for any other purpose. It can be used in any way, so that a bit of database information taken for police inquiries can be used in conjunction with another inquiry. That is no way out at all. We need a proper discussion. We need proper guidelines for the public and for those who are involved. I do not know, but my fingerprints may be all over a database. If that is the situation I would like to know, and I would like to get off it. I would like to know how to do so, but the fact is that I do not. We need a major debate on this so that people can understand the situation. For the moment, however, we need to have proper and clear guidelines on how to make an application to get off the database in reality and not only in exceptional circumstances. I wish to test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 161; Not-Contents, 150. Clause 18 [Material not subject to existing statutory restrictions]: