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A class action lawsuit, which claims that the Province of Ontario unlawfully keeps the DNA samples of innocent people who are cleared as suspects in criminal investigations, seeks Class certification from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
The Ontario DNA class action lawsuit was filed by Micky Granger who says he is a migrant worker who voluntarily provided a bodily sample to the Ontario Provincial Police as part of an investigation into a violent crime that took place in 2013.
Allegedly, the Ontario Centre for Forensic Sciences (CFS) obtained DNA information from the sample.
According to Granger, he was not convicted of an offense and was instead determined to be innocent. At this point, he claims that the CFS should have destroyed his sample.
Allegedly, the CFS failed to destroy Granger’s DNA sample along with samples from other suspects cleared by their DNA. The CFS reportedly maintains a database in which the DNA records of innocent individuals can be accessed by certain people.
The class action lawsuit claims that not destroying sensitive DNA information violates Canada’s Criminal Code, which requires that DNA samples given by consent are destroyed after a suspect has been determined to be innocent.
Granger aims to represent all people who voluntarily provided a sample of bodily substance for DNA testing by the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences, and who were then cleared in a criminal investigation, since June 30, 2000.
He seeks damages on behalf of himself and all other similarly affected individuals whose DNA has been retained unlawfully during the specified time frame. The plaintiff also seeks a declaration that the Province of Ontario unlawfully stored and retained DNA results from innocent people.
The Ontario DNA class action lawsuit claims that CFS’ failure to destroy DNA records of innocent individuals “significantly impinges upon the privacy interests of Class Members.”
In arguing that keeping DNA samples intrudes upon the privacy of Class Members, Granger says that CFS’ unlawful retention of the samples “would offend the reasonable person’s sensibilities” and would cause “distress and anguish” to affected Class Members.
The Ontario DNA class action lawsuit goes on to argue that an implied term of the consent of each person who agreed to give their DNA samples was that those samples would be handled in a way that complied with the Criminal Code. Allegedly, the proposed Class had “reasonable expectation” that their samples would be destroyed if they were found innocent.
The plaintiff says there is no legal justification to retain the samples. The Ontario DNA database class action lawsuit claims that the CFS knew or should have known that they unlawfully retained the samples, and that if the samples were retained unintentionally, that retention was reckless and a result of a lack of diligence.
Have you had DNA samples unlawfully stored or retained? Share your experiences in the comment section below.
Granger is represented by Goldblatt Partners LL, Jody Brown, and Geetha Philipupillai.
The Ontario DNA Sample Retention Class Action Lawsuit is Micky Granger v. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of the Province of Ontario, Case No. CV-18-00605134-00CP, in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Canada.
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