Should the police be allowed to use genetic information in public databases to track down criminals?
June 8, 2018 by Bob Yirka, Phys.org report
A trio of concerned citizens from the University of Baltimore and Baylor College of Medicine has published a Policy Forum piece in the journal Science surrounding the issue of law enforcement using genetic information in public databases to pursue criminals. In their paper, Natalie Ram, Christi Guerrini and Amy McGuire highlight the issues involved and offer some suggestions regarding how the issue might best be handled.
The case of police arresting a man suspected of being the Golden State Killer made headlines recently, partly because of the notoriety of the case and partly because of the way the case was cracked. The police compared DNA samples taken from crime scenes with those in a public database and found a close match—someone who was related to the suspect. Further work allowed them to narrow their search down to the man who was arrested. While most people likely received the news of a serial killer's capture as good news, others were also concerned about how it happened. This led to questions about the privacy of data in public databases—such as whether the police should be allowed to use such data to search for a suspect.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-police-genetic-databases-track-criminals.html#jCp