2.7 Blood spot cards are used for forensic police work
Police may access the blood spot cards of specific deceased or missing persons for forensic
purposes only if they first obtain a court order. This is extremely unusual.
Police may want to use a blood spot card to identify the body of someone who has been
killed in a disaster when there is no other way to identify them. For example blood spot cards
were used to identify some of the victims of the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami.
Current guidance set out in the Code of Practice (see section 3.1) is that samples from
individuals who are alive and not missing would not be released without a court order for this
purpose since alternatives are available.
The use of blood spot cards to help solve crimes raises the issue of whether police should
be able to test a large number of spots in the hope of identifying a criminal. The courts do
not currently permit this. Although police keep their own database of blood spots acquired
from suspected criminals for such purposes, this is not related in anyway to the stored
newborn blood spots cards. Testing large numbers of blood spot cards to identify a criminal
is not allowed.
Storing blood spot cards beyond the initial 5 years required by the screening programme,
extends the potential for the blood spot cards to help with forensic police work.
Q7a. Please consider the following statement and tick one of the 5 options below:
It is appropriate for stored blood spot cards to be used to help with forensic police work with
a court order.
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Neither agree nor disagree
4. Disagree
5. Strongly disagree
Q7b: Do you have other comments about the storage of blood spot cards beyond the initial 5
years required by the screening programme, to help with forensic police work?
2.8 Balancing the uses of blood spots
To summarise, newborn blood spots have valuable uses for individuals, families and the
population as a whole. Currently only four blood spots are collected for screening. Blood
spots from very few individuals are used for reasons other than screening or anonymous HIV
testing. The likelihood of needing to use blood spots after screening for individuals or their
families is also very, very low. On the very rare occasions that they are used to directly
benefit individuals or their families, the information from test results is very valuable.
This raises the issue about whether blood spots from an individual should only be used for
research or public health monitoring if there is enough blood left afterwards for the family. In
other words, should some blood always be kept in case it might be needed for the direct
benefit of that individual or their family in the future?
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