According to The Register the UK’s police forces have a bit of an IQ trainwreck with their police DNA database (like the one that they use on cop shows like CSI to absolutely identify the criminal with flashing lights and snazzy computer graphics -only slightly slower and less ‘rock and roll’ in the user interface department).

Apparently the interface between the DNA system and the Police National Computer was rejecting a large number (100,000 identified so far) of records due to a mismatch of key information.

The Register describes the root of the problem as follows:

Police DNA samples are identified and linked to both the DNA database and the PNC with two unique numbers. One of these is automatically printed on a label, along with a barcode, in a police officer’s DNA sampling kit. The other is the Arrest Summons Number, which a police officer writes by hand onto the sample label.

The samples are sent to the forensic service firms for processing, where both numbers are inputted into a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). This information is then emailed to the DNAD Unit, where another computer system automatically extracts the information and sticks it in a skeleton DNA record, which would have been created when a police officer took the original sample.

If the lab technician misread the police officer’s hand writing, there would be mismatch because both numbers need to match a corresponding record in the PNC in order for the DNA record to be loaded successfully.

This resulted in between 10% and 12% of records failing to load due to a mismatch in the data due to errors in transcription of handwritten information. To compound the problem it would seem that politics reared its ugly head as the Reg tells us that “poor co-operation” between the police forces, the DNA database unit and the forensic labs meant that the problem wasn’t tackled until a Data Quality and Integrity Team arrived on the scene to sort it out.

Of course, they sorted out for the police and forensic labs without them having to get their hands dirty. We hope that a forensic review of the root causes was put in place or else this problem will recur.

The key issues here from an IQ point of view are:

1. Proofing processes against error – the hand-written serial number was a source of error in a process that has to be water tight. What could be done to address this?
2. Failure of governance (or of a recognition that goverance was needed) to ensure good quality information for law enforcement purposes.
3. Politics and what seems like ‘not our problem, its your data’ type cultures.
4. Reliance on scrap and rework by an external agency (who appear now to be seen as the ‘saviours’ of the DNA database)

Poor quality information arises in a number of different ways. Often it is as inconvenient for you as the wrong price on a packet of peas in your supermarket. Other times it is the difference between a crime being solved or a criminal getting away.