The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) provides mission critical intelligence to combat the threats Australia faces from transnational serious and organised crime. We have an integrated view of crime, made possible through our connected systems and unique capabilities that we use to coordinate decision making with state and territory, Commonwealth and international partners to confront the threats we face.
The National Criminal Investigation DNA Database (NCIDD) holds more than 1.8 million DNA profiles that have been uploaded by Australian police from crime scenes, convicted offenders, suspects, volunteers, items belonging to missing persons and unknown human remains. This is a substantial growth from approximately 1.4 million profiles in 2019–20. As of August 2024, 12% of records are from South Australia.
The ACIC works with police agencies to ensure NCIDD operates in accordance with Commonwealth, state and territory legislation governing collection and matching of DNA profiles. NCIDD provides police the intelligence they need to solve crime by linking DNA profiles obtained from crime scenes with profiles from convicted offenders, suspects, volunteers, items belonging to missing persons and unknown human remains throughout Australia. The database also allows police to match profiles from 2 or more unsolved crime scenes, linking seemingly unrelated police investigations.
As referenced in our annual reports, there were 126,902 DNA matches in 2022–23 compared to 122,967 in 2021–22. There are multiple indexes used in NCIDD that can determine a DNA match (e.g., crime scene, suspect, missing persons). For example, currently there are approximately 600,000 crime scene index records in the system, which is 33% of submissions to NCIDD. However, it should be noted that records can be deleted and destroyed from the system by police agencies so this figure is subject to change.
ACIC spokesperson