If it was decreed that every Australian should have their fingerprints put on record there'd be an outrage. Yet something more personal than a fingerprint is on record for almost every Australian born after 1970 - a sample of their DNA. The DNA collection came about accidentally because of Guthrie Cards - a blood sample taken from every baby, to check for diseases. This DNA database has been inadvertently collected and kept by hospitals around the country and only now experts are realising what they have. DNA tells such personal things as the diseases we are likely to get and who are the true parents in our family trees. Yet there are no laws protecting this database.