Should the police be allowed to use genetic information in public databases to track down criminals?

[Oceander]

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.  Innocent people are convicted every day because Detectives have used precisely the technique I described, only to be discovered innocent years later after their loved ones almost bankrupt themselves getting Private Detectives to turn the cases.

I'm cynical.

Sorry, but the discussion of whether this technique should be used has to be done on the assumption that the cops are acting diligently and in good faith.  If they’re not, then this technique will not lead to any more false arrests than any other technique, simply because the cause of those arrests is the cops’ decision to act wrongfully.  In fact, since this technique relies on DNA evidence that was recovered from the scene, all a suspect needs to do is show that it isn’t his DNA.  No match, no criminal. 

[Cyber Liberty]

Sorry, but the discussion of whether this technique should be used has to be done on the assumption that the cops are acting diligently and in good faith.  If they’re not, then this technique will not lead to any more false arrests than any other technique, simply because the cause of those arrests is the cops’ decision to act wrongfully.  In fact, since this technique relies on DNA evidence that was recovered from the scene, all a suspect needs to do is show that it isn’t his DNA.  No match, no criminal.

I'll go along with that.  I wish the police could be relied upon to act diligently and in good faith.  If we can't agree on that possibility, then we'll never agree completely, because I don't think they do.  We must have different life experiences, which accounts for probably >90% of all disagreements in general, not just you and me.

[Oceander]

I'll go along with that.  I wish the police could be relied upon to act diligently and in good faith.  If we can't agree on that possibility, then we'll never agree completely, because I don't think they do.  We must have different life experiences, which accounts for probably >90% of all disagreements in general, not just you and me.

As a practical matter I agree that the police routinely act in bad faith, and I believe that prosecutors act even worse, but that has no bearing on whether the technique is objectionable from some policy basis such as the Constitution. 

And it doesn’t give them another way of being sloppy.  If anything, it limits their ability to be sloppy because it is premised on the existence of DNA from the scene, which severely limits the number of people to whom this technique can be applied.

[Cyber Liberty]

Bingo!  I can now agree completely.  Thanks for sticking with me.   

[Oceander]

This is no different from the situation where the police come upon a hit and run scene with a damaged white car that has red paint scrapes on the dent where it got hit, and a witness who says I saw the hit and run driver, I don’t know what his name is, but I know that his parents live on the culdesac at the end of Elm Street.  The witness also says he was driving a red Honda. Assume the culdesac contains 5 houses.  The police could go to the county courthouse and look at the deeds for each of the houses in the culdesac, get the last names, and then check the DMV records to see if a red Honda is registered to anyone with one of those last names.  If they get s hit, then they can go put eyeballs on the car in question to see if it shows signs of damage. 

They may get some false hits, ie, names with a red Honda registered to them, which were not involved, but that is why the final step requires them to eyeball the cars they discover.

The only real difference between my hypothetical and using DNA recovered from the scene is that DNA is more likely to lead to a suspect because it’s posible that the driver in my hypothetical rented or borrowed the red Honda, so the cops might not get any hits at all from checking the DMV records. 

[Cyber Liberty]

What if more than one of the houses has an occupant who has a red Honda registered? Can they still get a warrant for all of them? (I know.  It's unlikely, and your point is still a good one.)

[Oceander]

What if more than one of the houses has an occupant who has a red Honda registered? Can they still get a warrant for all of them? (I know.  It's unlikely, and your point is still a good one.)

Then you go look at the two (or more) cars to see if any of them shows any signs of damage consistent with the damage that you know was done to the white car.  The one that shows signs of damage is the winner. 

[Cyber Liberty]

Then you go look at the two (or more) cars to see if any of them shows any signs of damage consistent with the damage that you know was done to the white car.  The one that shows signs of damage is the winner.

But...would a judge sign warrants forcing them all to trot their red Hondas out of their garages for a look?  I think there are plenty of Judges who would sign off on that.  Of course, it would be easy for the Police to eliminate some of them if the cars are parked out in the open where they can be seen clearly from the street (no expectation of privacy).

Which takes me back to the beginning of this discussion:  Somebody signs away their expectation of privacy by allowing their DNA profile to be shared on a Public Domain database....

[Oceander]

But...would a judge sign warrants forcing them all to trot their red Hondas out of their garages for a look?  I think there are plenty of Judges who would sign off on that.  Of course, it would be easy for the Police to eliminate some of them if the cars are parked out in the open where they can be seen clearly from the street (no expectation of privacy).

Which takes me back to the beginning of this discussion:  Somebody signs away their expectation of privacy by allowing their DNA profile to be shared on a Public Domain database....

Why would you need to do that?  Just wait for the car to be driven.  Then eyeball it as it drives by. 

[Cyber Liberty]

Why would you need to do that?  Just wait for the car to be driven.  Then eyeball it as it drives by.

Sure.  It's likely to happen eventually.  Unless the perp knows your looking for it.  This why cops don't like to release a lot of info on their investigations.

[Oceander]

Sure.  It's likely to happen eventually.  Unless the perp knows your looking for it.  This why cops don't like to release a lot of info on their investigations.

Who said they had to release anything?  Furthermore, if they’ve identified two possible suspects, they can take telephotos and ask the witness to try and recognize one. 

[darroll]

Huh?

Dna test results just show a connection to a family and not an individual. Criminal DNA tests are a different type AABB and show a person.

[Elderberry]

Dna test results just show a connection to a family and not an individual. Criminal DNA tests are a different type AABB and show a person.

It's an individual that is tested, not a whole family. Hopefully the tester's DNA is shared in the  family.

[Bigun]

Having just read the thread, I think there is some confusion as to what is going on with this.  I SERIOUSLY doubt that anyone can use your info on ancestry or FTDNA to do anything like what has been discussed here.  There are however sites on the internet where you can voluntarily upload your raw dna file and have it compared to all those already in the database.   If you have any possible criminal liability I would strongly suggest you  stay away from that type n of site.

[Elderberry]

Forensic DNA Testing:  https://dnacenter.com/blog/forensic-dna-testing/

 the DNA samples collected undergo an analysis using several DNA testing systems, the most common of which are:

    Short Tandem Repeat (STR) analysis tests loci on nuclear DNA; there are 13 STR loci in the CODIS index (Combined DNA Index System), which is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s support program for criminal justice DNA databases. CODIS’ mission is to aid investigations, and as of June 2014, CODIS produced over 250,809 hits assisting in over 239,317 investigations.

    Y-Chromosome Short Tandem Repeats (Y-STR) targets the male or Y Chromosome of a provided sample, increasing the validity of results.

    Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Sequencing tests samples that are in the mitochondrion and that otherwise lack the ability to be tested by other means. This form of testing is especially useful in solving cold cases or where samples might be degraded.

[Bigun]

Forensic DNA Testing:  https://dnacenter.com/blog/forensic-dna-testing/

 the DNA samples collected undergo an analysis using several DNA testing systems, the most common of which are:

    Short Tandem Repeat (STR) analysis tests loci on nuclear DNA; there are 13 STR loci in the CODIS index (Combined DNA Index System), which is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s support program for criminal justice DNA databases. CODIS’ mission is to aid investigations, and as of June 2014, CODIS produced over 250,809 hits assisting in over 239,317 investigations.

    Y-Chromosome Short Tandem Repeats (Y-STR) targets the male or Y Chromosome of a provided sample, increasing the validity of results.

    Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Sequencing tests samples that are in the mitochondrion and that otherwise lack the ability to be tested by other means. This form of testing is especially useful in solving cold cases or where samples might be degraded.

And I'm guite sure that no one can have access to any of the data obtained from those tests unless you specifically give it to them.

When you are considering uploading your raw data to one of the sites I mentioned earlier you really should read the sites user agreement before you do that.

[Cyber Liberty]

Having just read the thread, I think there is some confusion as to what is going on with this.  I SERIOUSLY doubt that anyone can use your info on ancestry or FTDNA to do anything like what has been discussed here.  There are however sites on the internet where you can voluntarily upload your raw dna file and have it compared to all those already in the database.   If you have any possible criminal liability I would strongly suggest you  stay away from that type n of site.

I don't think a person having potential criminal liability can control when a family member uploads the raw DNA file to a public database.  There was a recent story where somebody got fingered who never did any kind of DNA testing.  A family member did and that's how they found him.

[Bigun]

I don't think a person having potential criminal liability can control when a family member uploads the raw DNA file to a public database.  There was a recent story where somebody got fingered who never did any kind of DNA testing.  A family member did and that's how they found him.

That's probably correct and something else to consider.

[Cyber Liberty]

That's probably correct and something else to consider.

I wonder how this will eventually play out in the courts.  "Law and Order" Judges will say "Great idea!" while civil libertarians will not like it at all.  If the courts decide this is a good thing, I predict the public DNA databases genealogy will dry up pretty quickly.

[Bigun]

I wonder how this will eventually play out in the courts.  "Law and Order" Judges will say "Great idea!" while civil libertarians will not like it at all.  If the courts decide this is a good thing, I predict the public DNA databases genealogy will dry up pretty quickly.

I suspect that you are right.  And will make genuine geneoligc research more difficult.