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Thousands of Scottish children are having their DNA stored on police computers, new figures have revealed.
The total number of under-18s on Police Scotland's DNA database has more than tripled in the last three years from 10,425 in 2011 to 35,224 in the past year.
A total of 251 of the DNA profiles currently stored by police are from youngsters aged 13 and under including two ten-year-olds.
Many of those added to the database have not committed any crime, as swabs are routinely taken when a suspect is arrested.
The youngest child currently on the database is a ten-year-old who was arrested in Grampian, but DNA samples have been taken from those as young as eight in previous years.
DNA is kept from people who have committed an offence as well as those being searched against a crime scene and others pending a decision.
A total of 313,425 DNA profiles are currently held on the DNA database, around one in 17 of the population.
It was set up in 1996 and when it became fully independent of the UK-wide version...