DNA mistake

A man in Yokohama was wrongly served with an arrest warrant and had his home searched after police mixed up his DNA records with someone else's: he was involved in a hit-and-run accident in Yokohama in October 2007, and he wrongly became the subject of a warrant for an unrelated theft which took place two years later because a DNA sample from the hit-and-run was wrongly filed in the police database.

Luckily for him, they worked out the mistake. Such mistakes are not uncommon.

UPDATE: Explanation from the relevant police department: human error.

Sounds familiar.

By Alex Deane

Comments

[LeChiffre]

Does "human error", as an expression, mean that as the error was "human" it should be forgiven? The other expression, "computer error" means that although it need not be forgiven, there is no one to blame because the fault was the computer's. Both expressions frustrate the notion of accountability. Weasel words. The correct way to deal with this is for the police chief concerned to say, "I apologise for the mistake; as a token gesture I am sending a fat cheque to the victim who I hope recovers soon."

[Purlieu]

In 100 years time, or perhaps sooner, robots will be accessing the global DNA database and 'cleansing' humanity of all those not-so-good examples that populate our planet. Leaving only 'perfect' examples to perpetuate the species. This will be because laws to prevent non-perfects from reproducing didn't work, so a more 'robust' solution was needed. So all that military research didn't go in vain then.
When one calls at your door, you know it's not come to say hello, and there's no point running, those DNA-trackers are very very good. Your only hope is to escape to the DNA-free zone. Good luck.

[Jimbo]

When we have all been chipped, the computers can simply switch off the undesirables remotely: no need to knock on your door, except to bring out the dead.