The Big Brother-esque law is designed to create an enormous database of all those living in the country, including the 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents.
It will be the first country in the world to gather genetic samples of the entire population – as opposed to just storing the DNA of convicted criminals.
The law was passed following the June 26 terrorist attack by ISIS in Kuwait City in which a gruesome suicide bombing of a mosque killed 26 people and wounded 227 others.
The bomber’s real name was Fahd Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Qabaa and was born in Saudi Arabia in 1992 and arrived in Kuwait hours before the attack.
Special funding of around $400million was set aside to create the database.
A national DNA database would be considered illegal in the European Union. Collecting and retaining the DNA of non-criminals is seen as a clear violation of people’s right to privacy.
