# Police using DNA from ancestry web sites



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

If you're submitting your genetic samples to these ancestry web sites, beware that police/government has started using these to locate people for law enforcement purposes. These two cases popped up just recently:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...-case-was-cracked-with-a-genealogy-web-site1/
https://www.king5.com/article/news/...c-man-arrested-in-1987-homicide/281-553879637

Personally I would never submit my DNA to one of these companies, as it's obvious that it threatens personal (and family) privacy. Imagine that I have a descendant (child or grandchild) who police, in the future, suspect in a crime. They could potentially use my DNA records to track down someone in my family, at any point in the future.

More broadly, I think it's distressing that government is searching through genetic data for private citizens. There are all kinds of violations of civil liberties that could result from this... best to keep your data private, don't submit your samples.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

PS, imagine what would have happened if ancestry web sites existed back when Nazis were in power. Have a good Friday night everyone!


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

i have submitted dna to both ancestry dna and for dna profiling medications that may or may not work for me ...

the young couple from my town were traveling to seattle for a short vacation and we’re brutally raped and murdered ... using dna samples and ancestral family trees they have just arrested a suspect and thank god justice has been done

same with the golden state killer, that sadistic freak is finally facing justice and his victims some of whom still live in fear may finally get some closure

so you want one of your descendants to get away with murder james, do i have that right ? ... seriously?

first, you are going to eventually give your dna for something somewhere, it will happen, whether it’s a police stop or medical test or any number of other possibilities ... you can fight the good fight but you will give it up 

dna will be widely used 

i for one one believe it will lead to a more law abiding and civilized society if we all know that we may be held accountable for crimes ...

the answer to the civil liberties part of the puzzle is simple, well thought out laws that are respected and enforced ...

we all have dna and thus there will strong and wide support for laws

did you really want these two murderers (they have not been convicted) to remain free and at large ?

the police did nothing remotely illegal, they just used their smarts to figure out how to catch these guys


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

fatcat said:


> i have submitted dna to both ancestry dna and for dna profiling medications that may or may not work for me ...
> 
> the young couple from my town were traveling to seattle for a short vacation and we’re brutally raped and murdered ... using dna samples and ancestral family trees they have just arrested a suspect and thank god justice has been done
> 
> same with the golden state killer, that sadistic freak is finally facing justice and his victims some of whom still live in fear may finally get some closure


Besides justice and closure, the perpetrator is prevented from destroying more lives in the future

I haven't submitted to any of these sites but I have considered it when I get around to it for both better awareness of genetic conditions and the benefit to medical research overall

If the profitable commercial price is that low today and there are benefits to society as a whole I don't see why it isn't a public program already


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## lightcycle (Mar 24, 2012)

There is a whole kettle of abuses ripe for opening with a DNA registry.

There's the threat of biosurveillance where traces of your DNA can be used to determine where you have been. Even if you haven't broken the law, there are still activities and places where you may not want employers, friends and family to know about: abortion clinics, political rallies, strip clubs, cannabis shops.

Another potential abuse is genetic profiling. If tests for genetic disorders or susceptibility to illnesses can be run against DNA, it could be used by potential employers for screening candidates. It can also be used by governments for determining who to let it for immigration. It can be used by insurance companies to determine your premiums for health or accident insurance.

The very fact that the police will hold this database means that the immediate direction for analysis will be to find a correlation or a genetic predisposition to criminality. Imagine losing your rights and privileges even before you leave your mother's womb.

Loss of anonymity is a privilege that is eroded by a DNA database. We change our names and appearances not just to evade law enforcement, but to escape abusive spouses/households, witness protection, freedom from being sought out by biological children who have been given up for adoption. You cannot change your DNA. All efforts to erase a past, no matter how ethical, moral or legal, will be nullified by a DNA database.


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Not sure why you would use your real information on any of these sites.
Throwaway Gmail or other email set up on tablet used at Timmes, and so forth. Don't link to relatives etc.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

lightcycle, i don't argue that there is a whole kettle of abuse possible but if you think we aren't being tracked already, you aren't reading enough, this is just the latest about police being able able to track every cellphone in america and canada through a hack of a commercial database

https://arstechnica.com/information...ons-to-find-any-mobile-device-breached-again/

we are living right now in a privacy holocaust ... soon, nobody will be able to live without the internet and you leave traces of yourself digitally and physically every-bloody-where

we are all in this together and the only possible answer is well written laws that are enforceable

ancestry has loudly proclaimed that they are going to allow me to control my data as has https://www.mydna.life/en-ca/ which i use for medication

but if they asked me to contribute it help catch a murderer i would do so in a heartbeat

i have not the slightest doubt that in 25 years ... maybe less ... every baby born in north america will be dna'd in additon to the ramping up dna capture that is already in place for criminals and people like me who volunteer their data

there is a strong and real possibility of building a much better and safer world with this technology


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

stuff like this is here and now and much greater threat to your liberty, life and privacy than dna

*Hundreds of Apps Can Empower Stalkers to Track Their Victims*

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


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## Earl (Apr 5, 2016)

I submitted my dna to 23andme. I am not concerned about privacy, as I have nothing to hide, and I don't plan on committing any crimes in the future. If one of my relatives commits a murder, I wouldn't have a problem with them using my dna to catch them. I think you people are just scared of new things.

If you are worried about privacy, you can make up a fake name when you order your kit. And you can pay with a prepaid credit card.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

there are genetic markers for a very aggressive form of prostate cancer which can be discovered by a simple dna test 

same for breast cancer and a host of other health problems like a predisposition to high cholesterol 

dna testing offers huge possibilities for improving health

https://gucasym.org/daily-news/curr...-prostate-cancer-and-implications-oncologists

knowing you have this gene would enable any man to be much more proactive in regularly getting tested in order to catch the disease early and face a much better prognosis


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

The BRCA1 gene for example for increased breast and ovarian cancer. A 35 yr old relative by marriage was recently been informed from "23andMe, as a result of "23andMe" testing, that she has the BRCA1 gene mutation. See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160304120803.htm

This is disheartening news to say the least but at least now she can pursue 'genetic counseling' with regard to whether she should be proactive like Angelina Jolie, or take her chances. More importantly, should she have another child (she currently has a 3 month old daughter)? If there is any good news in this, she can now perhaps make an informed decision about having more children....or not.

There are very sound and valid reasons for some people to have DNA testing for medical defects/risks. I am too old to want to know what might disable or kill me within the next 10 years. I already know a few things I am susceptible to from my own parents and that is knowledge enough.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Earl said:


> I submitted my dna to 23andme. I am not concerned about privacy, as I have nothing to hide


This is the wrong logic, in my opinion.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

AltaRed said:


> There are very sound and valid reasons for some people to have DNA testing for medical defects/risks. I am too old to want to know what might disable or kill me within the next 10 years. I already know a few things I am susceptible to from my own parents and that is knowledge enough.


I don't think this is a good idea. These are all probabilistic things. So one issue is that these genetic based markers are not strong indicators of a particular disease or issue. They just might show a leaning towards a condition.

In medical diagnostic processes, there is a good reason you don't send a patient to go and do "every test under the sun". The reason is false positives. If you subject 100 million people to EVERY imaginable test, you are going to find all kinds of (suspected) diseases in them. This comes from the statistics of false positives. This in turn can cause many problems, because some of the interventions are quite dangerous, invasive, and can then have follow-on negative consequences.

For this reason, the proper medical procedure is for a doctor to send someone for specific tests, when something is actually suspected.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

In a way, the problem with police mining these genetic databases is related to the same problem that happens from doing widespread testing for illnesses. The problem is false positives, erroneous matches and false leads.

Many of you seem to be making the assumption that these tests are infallible. They are absolutely not -- mistakes can be made, and false pointers can result.

Finding genes related to a disease is totally a probabilistic thing. On the matter of police investigations, genetic searches also are not infallible. Assuming the sample itself is correct, taken from the correct place (not always the case), it is not necessarily a fool-proof match for a test (see one article on this). And these police searches for heredity are not identifying specific individuals. They are identifying relatives, who then let the police go and question each of these people, find leads, and hopefully get closer to the person of interest.

See this other article on the mistakes in DNA testing.

Therefore there are many kind of *false positives* that can result. This could be due to bad samples, erroneous tests, and just plain questioning, harassing and bothering people (due to the genetic link) who have no involvement with the crime at all -- because police believe this is a way to find the person they are looking for.

By submitting your samples to these database, you are opening up yourself to this world of false positives. It could mean that down the road, you or your family members may be questioned by the police -- even if you had no involvement in any crime.

Again this is a matter of statistics. Even if a false positive rate is very low, when applied to hundreds of millions of people, suddenly you get many matches. You all can put your names in these databases if you want... exposing yourself to the lottery of false positives... but I won't.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

james4beach said:


> I don't think this is a good idea. These are all probabilistic things. So one issue is that these genetic based markers are not strong indicators of a particular disease or issue. They just might show a leaning towards a condition.


While I understand you may be offering a generalized view, be careful about opining on specific situations that you do not have specific knowledge on. In this particular marker, ~50% or more probability of breast and/or ovarian cancer is serious enough to take it seriously and continue with more genetic testing and counseling.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james, let’s not conflate dna testing for genetic markers with the issue of privacy as regards to civil rights ... these are two separate things

as to the police issue, they are using publicly available information and are not in any way skirting the law to catch murderers and rapists ... enough said 

with regard to genetic markers, if you are a man and you carry either BRCA1 or BRCA2 and you get prostate cancer your chances of being killed by that cancer are infinitely greater ...

compared to typical prostate cancer this genetic variant causes the cancer to move like a forest fire through the body

knowing you have the gene so you can proactively monitor your prostate health can save your life

this is exactly why angelina jolie did something no woman would ever want to do and had a proactive mastectomy

your reasoning on both issues baffles me ...


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Having a certain gene never gives you 100% chance of outcome X and I think both of you above are under-appreciating the danger of false positives, and potentially useless results.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics/brca-fact-sheet

And again, the statistical factor I mention is important. If you do widespread testing of everyone, then the math shows that you will get a large number of false positives. This is why testing should not be done indiscriminately. It is not a good idea to test yourself for "every disease under the sun". Screening for a genetic indicator and using this to take medical intervention *can both improve your life, and possibly can harm your life (e.g. unnecessary intervention).*



> Because harmful BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations are relatively rare in the general population, most experts agree that mutation testing of individuals who do not have cancer should be performed only when the person’s individual or family history suggests the possible presence of a harmful mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2.


Also see:
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2018/01/24/brca-screening-will-harm-women/
https://health.usnews.com/wellness/...t-undergo-brca-testing-for-breast-cancer-risk



> The USPSTF recommends against routine genetic counseling or BRCA testing for women whose family history isn’t associated with a higher risk of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. “The strategy for using the screening tools first to identify women in whom a BRCA-positive test might be more likely is that it reduces the number of false positive or false negative tests,” Bibbins-Domingo says. “So the burden for just doing this in everyone is that you increase the likelihood of having false tests, which then require additional workups and then, in the rare cases, potentially treatments that are not indicated.”


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## Mookie (Feb 29, 2012)

If my DNA can be used to catch a killer, I think that’s worth the loss of a bit of privacy. I think the only people who would be against that (or video surveillance, smartphone tracking, etc) would be those murderers out there that haven’t been caught yet… James - what have you been up to? :cocksure:

I wasn’t planning to submit my DNA, but now maybe I should, just to see if any rotten apples can be shaken out of my family tree.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

fatcat said:


> ... the answer to the civil liberties part of the puzzle is simple, well thought out laws that are respected and enforced ...


It is also about making sure DNA wasn't transferred to frame whomever, whether by accident or not keeping up with the research.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/04/19/framed-for-murder-by-his-own-dna


Cheers


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

Eclectic12 said:


> It is also about making sure DNA wasn't transferred to frame whomever, whether by accident or not keeping up with the research.
> https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/04/19/framed-for-murder-by-his-own-dna
> 
> 
> Cheers


on that we certainly agree, ensuring that dna samples are handled with great care benefits all of us ... nobody wants to go to prison for life because some incompetent or corrupt lab worker or policeman screwed up a sample ... the protocols for the handling of dna should be strengthened to the utmost limit if we build a society based on dna ... and it looks like we certainly are going to now use dna widely throughout society, it will soon be impossible to avoid much to james's chagrin

james, that dna is not predictive or that it produces false positives says nothing at all about its potential usefulness ... nobody is saying it is a magic bullet only that it ... can ... be incredibly useful and lifesaving

if you get a genetic report that says you are positive for the BRCA1 gene then you are going to be very proactive about watching the health of your prostate, if the test is a false positive, you have lost absolutely nothing, if the test is accurate and the positive is not false, additional watchfulness may save your life

there is no "intervention" here james, merely a higher degree of awareness of the possibility of a certain condition ...

angelina jolie was so concerned that she took a proactive step and certainly what she did is controversial for the reasons you cite

if i had the gene i wouldn't proactively have my prostate surgically removed but i would certainly get the digital rectal and psa every year without fail and that may save my life


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Mookie said:


> I wasn’t planning to submit my DNA, but now maybe I should, just to see if any rotten apples can be shaken out of my family tree.


If you submit your DNA, you're also opening yourself (and all your family) to potential unfair harassment, unfair targeting by police, false positive matches that are erroneous, potential convictions and having lives ruined due to broken/flawed investigations. As I keep saying, DNA testing is not 100% accurate.

The police will find people vaguely linked to the DNA match, and start questioning them. Guess what happens if the police start asking you questions and don't like the look of you, for whatever reason. You can be questioned and harassed by the police, even if you or your family have no involvement with any crime. There are many people flagged by these DNA techniques that have no involvement in any crime.

You also open up your family to corrupt police and government practices such as targeting for personal reasons, political reasons, etc. And not just for your life time... it's forever, in the future. It means that you must have faith that no future government will be authoritarian, no future government will be fascist, no future government will go on a with hunt for religious/political reasons.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> If you submit your DNA, you're also opening yourself (and all your family) to potential unfair harassment, unfair targeting by police, false positive matches that are erroneous, potential convictions and having lives ruined due to broken/flawed investigations. As I keep saying, DNA testing is not 100% accurate.
> 
> The police will find people vaguely linked to the DNA match, and start questioning them. Guess what happens if the police start asking you questions and don't like the look of you, for whatever reason. You can be questioned and harassed by the police, even if you or your family have no involvement with any crime. There are many people flagged by these DNA techniques that have no involvement in any crime.
> 
> You also open up your family to corrupt police and government practices such as targeting for personal reasons, political reasons, etc. And not just for your life time... it's forever, in the future. It means that you must have faith that no future government will be authoritarian, no future government will be fascist, no future government will go on a with hunt for religious/political reasons.


james, you really should know your facts before you make statements like this which, with respect, is rampant mutant paranoia and nothing less

first you are mixing genetic testing and the issue of false positives with the issue of the police accessing public dna databases

these are two completely different scenarios, one involving the police accessing public databases to solve crimes and the other involving genetic testing for possible disease markers

virtually every dna testing company that offers ancestry testing, testing for medications and or genetic markers for cancer has a strict privacy policy and most will actively resist any attempt by authorities to gain access to the data

in addition most allow you to withdraw consent from any use for research (with identity masked) or sharing at any time, you can withdraw consent

GEDmatch which the police used, is an exception, it offers dna data publicly for all to see and use and anyone who uploads there is exposing their dna to the world

dna samples used for medical and health purposes are not linked to family trees so they do the police no good at all ... ancestry.com has explicitly stated that it does not share its database with the police as one well known example


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

The other big "privacy issue" here is insurance companies potentially gaining access to these data and using it to exclude or jack up rates on a high percentage of the population who have some sort of unmanifested disease risk marker show up on their DNA report.

I never did it years ago when 23 and me came out due to the thought that the government would get it eventually... glad I didn't.

The crime fighting side is both interesting and scary. I suppose a powerful new crime fighting tool would be great. It could bring in at-large convicts at a much higher rate, and also reduce false convictions of the wrong guy. On the flip side, especially with the development of familial DNA tracking, it's almost akin to some 5th amendment violation against one's self, family, or a 1st amendment speech violation as your DNA "speaks" about your criminal nephew, against your will. I'm probably stretching it there...IANAL, but the principle stands.



> first, you are going to eventually give your dna for something somewhere, it will happen, whether it’s a police stop or medical test or any number of other possibilities ... you can fight the good fight but you will give it up


Yup. Disney got my finger print a few months ago while visiting Disney World... :blue: I didn't see it coming and wham it just happened. Supposedly they are not actually measuring a picture of your prints, just 3 data points that are converted to a non-databased algorithm to verify you are the card holder of your Disney pass... but still... Also supposedly Disney has been in cahoots with the CIA ever since the formation of Disney, so likely the CIA has my prints now. There's also a Peruvian coach bus company that has my fingerprint from years ago, but I am less concerned that made it into any meaningful database.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

james4beach said:


> If you submit your DNA, you're also opening yourself (and all your family) to potential unfair harassment, unfair targeting by police, false positive matches that are erroneous, potential convictions and having lives ruined due to broken/flawed investigations. As I keep saying, DNA testing is not 100% accurate.
> 
> The police will find people vaguely linked to the DNA match, and start questioning them. Guess what happens if the police start asking you questions and don't like the look of you, for whatever reason. You can be questioned and harassed by the police, even if you or your family have no involvement with any crime. There are many people flagged by these DNA techniques that have no involvement in any crime.
> 
> You also open up your family to corrupt police and government practices such as targeting for personal reasons, political reasons, etc. And not just for your life time... it's forever, in the future. It means that you must have faith that no future government will be authoritarian, no future government will be fascist, no future government will go on a with hunt for religious/political reasons.


If fingerprinting was a new science, the same complaint would be made about fingerprinting.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

^ Well, exactly! The government only gets to finger print you when there is already other evidence that you are potentially a criminal... Naturally the same would apply for your DNA, and likely in an even stricter way, because the DNA is more powerful than a fingerprint, like being able to identify your relatives as criminals.

This is about a person's DNA that has been volunteered to a private corporation for the exclusive purpose of health and genealogy personal curiosity... The data is then improperly taken by government agencies to phish for potential links to criminals activity, for which they have no suspicion of, and extract a person's private biometric information without cause or warrant.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I agree, this is exactly analogous to fingerprints. We don't all register fingerprints with the government and police. Why don't you give your fingerprint samples, and all your children's, to the police? Even better, how about at age 18 all children register their fingerprint and mug shot at the local police station. If you haven't done anything wrong, and never plan to, you should have nothing to hide, right? (I'm saying this sarcastically)

Police only get your fingerprints when there is a crime suspected. This is the standard in western, modern countries. Police and government _don't get to_ just have all your private details, in case they later want to investigate you. They ONLY get these in special circumstances.

This is why the DNA database mining is a big deal, a violation of civil rights. Police are obtaining and using "fingerprints" (DNA) for a huge number of people who have never been suspected of a crime.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

peterk said:


> The data is then improperly taken by government agencies to phish for potential links to criminals activity, for which they have no suspicion of, and extract a person's private biometric information without cause or warrant.


I think you have a hollywood view of government agencies just randomly looking for something on a hunch. Cowboy ops are frowned upon and most people are too lazy to investigate randomly for more than they were asked to. I'm not even sure how you randomly look for something with no suspicion.

Although I think the concern is an innocent person being charged for something only on evidence they volunteered. I don't think that would stand up in court and government agencies probably wouldn't even try without more evidence than just 1 volunteered evidence.

There's no way government agencies would even trust this data beyond a mere cue. If so someone could pick up a hair or spit and submit it as my DNA to these private corporations to throw them off. I agree more questions need to be asked about protection of private data


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

peterk said:


> ^ Well, exactly! The government only gets to finger print you when there is already other evidence that you are potentially a criminal... Naturally the same would apply for your DNA, and likely in an even stricter way, because the DNA is more powerful than a fingerprint, like being able to identify your relatives as criminals.
> 
> This is about a person's DNA that has been volunteered to a private corporation for the exclusive purpose of health and genealogy personal curiosity... *The data is then improperly taken by government agencies to phish for potential links to criminals activity, for which they have no suspicion of, and extract a person's private biometric information without cause or warrant.*


this is completely false ...

the information that the police used was obtained from a publicly open and available database that was populated with raw dna data freely given by people who knew that heir data was going to be made publicly available 

companies that provide genealogical and health services via the analysis of dna samples virtually all have strict privacy which preclude the sharing of any data at all without consent

the police have no ability at all to obtain these samples and most of the companies will actively resist any attempts to do so

and besides the information does them no good at all for the purposes of identifying relatives of potential criminals...

such information is only useful when it is linked to other people ...

*james said*


> Police only get your fingerprints when there is a crime suspected. This is the standard in western, modern countries.


completely untrue, the fbi fingerprint database includes all kind of prints completely innocent of any crime, including background checks, government workers and anyone who has served in the military

we don’t register fingerprints because there is no point in registering fingerprints ... fingerprints can’t be used for ancestral linkage


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

True that I oversimplified by saying fingerprints are only taken when someone is suspected but the fact remains, taking fingerprints is done only in exceptional situations: interacting with the justice system (being arrested), acquiring government security clearance, or other specialized security checks. And in those cases it's only when the person explicitly grants permission.

Only a very small % of the population has their fingerprints taken and recorded, and this is for good reason.

fatcat I thought you were an American. Don't you value personal privacy and civil rights?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

yes, this is a privacy issue but the system could likely get a warrant if need be to get access to the data at the ancestry type sites. Too, people leave dna all over the place where authorities can collect it if they want it. 

There is another side to the dna/crime story and that is the huge number of people who were previously convicted yet later exonerated on dna evidence. Personally I think the dna technology has been an outstanding tool not only to convict but to clear people who might otherwise have gone down on false/mistaken conviction. The noose is tightening on the psychopaths.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

I say kudos to the police for having the initiative and imagination to use clues (dna) willingly submitted by people to publically accessable genealogy databases.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> True that I oversimplified by saying fingerprints are only taken when someone is suspected but the fact remains, taking fingerprints is done only in exceptional situations: interacting with the justice system (being arrested), acquiring government security clearance, or other specialized security checks. And in those cases it's only when the person explicitly grants permission.
> 
> Only a very small % of the population has their fingerprints taken and recorded, and this is for good reason.
> 
> fatcat I thought you were an American. Don't you value personal privacy and civil rights?


well,when i went in to the service they sure didn't ask my permission 

sure i value personal privacy and civil rights but they aren't absolute and you need to pick your battles ... though i do believe that personal privacy as we used to know it is now pretty much over for better or worse

the police did absolutely nothing wrong here, they used their smarts and publicly available information to catch 2 very, very bad men who are now off the street and the victims families may get some peace

i am not entirely even certain what your position is james ... are you saying that people shouldn't be allowed to submit dna for health or ancestry information ?

i think you personally don't like the idea so fine, don't submit dna or use these services

are you saying police shouldn't be allowed to access publicly available information ? ... they didn't even need a warrant ... 

my problem with your argument is that there is no real civil liberties violation here ... you are ginning it up based on the possibility that it could be misused

of course it can be misused ... it can also be used to exonerate innocent men as pluto says

we have to trust the police, we have to watch them and hold them accountable but we have to trust them


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

james4beach said:


> ...Why don't you give your fingerprint samples, and all your children's, to the police? Even better, how about at age 18 all children register their fingerprint and mug shot at the local police station. If you haven't done anything wrong, and never plan to, you should have nothing to hide, right? ...


I have news for you. Children are routinely fingerprinted and photographed as part of child safety programs, and police have access to (or operate) the databases. This is so they can trace a missing child (or identify the remains). But I don't imagine they ever erase the old data. But these are voluntary programs, just like the ancestry dna programs.

Your intended joke that everyone should be fingerprinted is actually not a bad idea. And I would go further and vote in favour of a mandatory dna registry. It would solve a lot of otherwise unsolved crimes; and clear a number of people who have been wrongfully convicted.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

OhGreatGuru said:


> I have news for you. Children are routinely fingerprinted and photographed as part of child safety programs, and police have access to (or operate) the databases. This is so they can trace a missing child (or identify the remains). But I don't imagine they ever erase the old data. But these are voluntary programs, just like the ancestry dna programs.
> 
> Your intended joke that everyone should be fingerprinted is actually not a bad idea. *And I would go further and vote in favour of a mandatory dna registry. It would solve a lot of otherwise unsolved crimes; and clear a number of people who have been wrongfully convicted.*


it would also go further by reminding people that their dna was on file and that might well cause people to behave better

privacy is over ... its finished ... we are now going to be traced, tracked, catalogued and databased whether we like it or not

not because people are evil but because technology is moving so much faster than we can even understand

the answer is to implement protocols that allow bidirectional access so the watched can watch the watchers and implement strict laws against misuse of data


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## Daniel A. (Mar 20, 2011)

Anyone carrying a cell phone can be tracked.


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## Retiredguy (Jul 24, 2013)

OhGreatGuru said:


> I have news for you. Children are routinely fingerprinted and photographed as part of child safety programs, and police have access to (or operate) the databases.  This is so they can trace a missing child (or identify the remains). But I don't imagine they ever erase the old data. But these are voluntary programs, just like the ancestry dna programs.
> 
> Your intended joke that everyone should be fingerprinted is actually not a bad idea. And I would go further and vote in favour of a mandatory dna registry. It would solve a lot of otherwise unsolved crimes; and clear a number of people who have been wrongfully convicted.



Really, you actually believe the police keep databases of children's fingerprints. Nonsense. When children are fingerprinted as part of the child safety program the one and only copy of the prints is immediately handed to the parent in attendance, for safe keeping in the event they are later needed. They are not in any database which is kept by, or accessible to the police.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Not really sure. For other areas like actually destroying guns they report as destroyed, in at least one case I am aware of, the "destroyed" guns were found in the police chief's collection or turned up in other crimes.

Where a voice recording ruled out a disabled person as a prank caller about fires - instead of trying to find the correct person, something like five or seven years were spent starting with the cleared person despite almost half of the time, independent people were with disabled person pretty close to 24x7.

What's supposed to be happening and what happens in a particular case are not necessarily the same thing.


Returning to the question - one wonders why the Masons offer saliva swabs when it seems that this is not likely to be acceptable to an accredited lab.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/amy-macpherson/freemason_b_1906521.html
https://www.masonichip.ca/


Cheers


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

ever heard of "shadow profiles" on facebook ?

even if you are not a member, you may well be alive and well and well in the bowels of facebook ... if your friends upload your information via contacts or photos, you are on facebook like or not 

what about when apps ask you for access to your contact list ? ... you can say "no" but any contact list that a friend or family member who unwittingly complies will be uploading all of your data (whatever the friend/family member keeps: address, birthday, likes and so on) to whatever company asks

these are just two small ways in which your privacy is shredded

privacy as we used to know it is over ... 

the answer is watching the watchers and very good laws with accountability built in


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Further to what Oh Great Guru said, in Ontario, at least in some hospitals, children are routinely fingerprinted at birth( foot prints actually). For at least the last 25 years. 
I don't recall where those prints are stored, or if police have access etc etc but I know they were done. According to the person that did them at the time, almost every parent agrees.
I seem to recall some sales pitch if you will about being useful in case of mixup or lost missing child.

Tbh, I am not sure how long this was done for, or if it is still being done.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

^ That doesn't sound like the same thing or issue at all... a footprint in useless. The mere fact that the way they do it is with a footprint (silly) instead of a fingerprint, shows how important everyone knows the fingerprint really is, not to be relinquished lightly.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

footprints are completely unique and can be used to identify children and infants who are mixed up or go missing ... much easier to do a footprint on a new born than their tiny fingerprints

finger and footprints are formed at 22 weeks and can be used to identify the same person as an adult 50 years later


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Just be glad you are not in Britain. They take fingerprints of children in schools and use biometric scanners of fingers to check out library books etc. They also apparently have DNA on most childrrn born in the last 10 years or so.

FYI even corporations in Canada have actively investigated similiar technologies.
RBC has tested voice pattern recognition for their telephone banking ( yes you have a unique voice print) and also iris recognition for bank machines. I am not sure if their programs are still being tested but they invested a fair bit into this over 10 years ago.
Of course they may have dropped some of this as new technologies have begun to reduce telephone banking and the use of cash.
Police in most developed countries are actively using or testing facial recognition software. ( BTW also a technology the banks have looked at)
You can run but you can't hide. :-/


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

New York requires thumbprint id to get welfare. Reportedly, when that commenced, claims dropped 5%. Apparently 5% of claims were fradulent.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

One thing I like about Americans is their appreciation for individual rights and freedoms.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

^ Yes. Individual rights and freedoms are as important as social justice. Ultimately, both might boil down to the same thing.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> One thing I like about Americans is their appreciation for individual rights and freedoms.


me too james ... where we disagree is on the best way to get and keep those rights

i used to be even more paranoid than you on privacy but have changed 180-degrees because a) i really do think that technology is now shredding privacy so fast it is completely impossible to put it back together (and it is doing this completely innocently as a by-product, an artifact of rapid technological progress that is beyond our capacity to even catalogue) and b) transparency in some ways would deliver a strong net benefit to a complex and fragmented society

if there were a way (i am speaking theoretically) to utterly and with certainty know that a person was, exactly who his identification said he was ... and this could not be faked ... much good could come from it

it could have a huge affect on reducing crime for example ...

it is also completely true that, if we don't have strong laws and don't watch the watchers, the whole thing could spin into an orwellian nightmare as we see happening in china with their omnipresent "social credit" system


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

It is amazing how violent criminals have been getting caught due to the tracking capabilities of their own cell phones. But the law authorites don't care to track anyone that isn't involved. The only one who tracks the regular folks via cell phone is marketing companies. Generaly people don't care they are being tracked by marketing.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

golden state killer captured using swabs from his car door and a discarded tissue ... both items publicly available and needing no warrant presumably 

https://www.upi.com/Golden-State-Ki...-DNA-from-trash-car-of-suspect/8541527894418/

these would create the sample that would match to his dna on file and then plenty of warrants would be spit out

i can hardly wait for the movie which will surely come out and the moment when the detectives are told they have a match of man considered one of the most wicked and sadistic serial rapists and murderers in recent history

pro-tip: if you are a serial killer, wear gloves at all times and burn your trash


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Facial recognition technology is being used very successfully to identify shoplifters as they enter the retail establishment. The system vendors claim that stock shrinkage is reduced by as much as 40 points in some retail outlets. Several firms are marketing this aggressively and successfully. I think one of the big drug store chains is implementing it after a successful trial.

I think we are headed to a world of facial recognition, fingerprints, and retinal scans. The tech. is in place. The requirement and the demand exists.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

looks like the real privacy threat is actually our phones ...
facebook gave access to phonemakers so they could use facebook users data

a story in the times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news tells how a blackberry app was able to upload user data on 556 of his friends which then was able to access data on 294,258 of his friends friends

privacy is over ... what are we going to do about it ?


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

fatcat said:


> privacy is over ... what are we going to do about it ?


Privacy is not over, there's just a big asymmetry in capabilities: between government & big corporate capabilities versus individual capabilities.

What to do about it? I plan to start a business to develop software and technologies for individuals. Having worked with the government side for many years, I've seen how bad the asymmetry is. Time to bring more power to the individuals. Partly it's about knowledge, party it's processes, partly it's tools.

I previously paid my way through university and built my net worth by creating software tools for privacy, and that was before smart phones even existed, and before all this big data / mining / social media stuff. My hope is to take it up a notch. In fact I was on the phone tonight trying to recruit some talent towards this goal.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

fatcat said:


> pro-tip: if you are a serial killer, wear gloves at all times and burn your trash


It's great that they're catching killers, but the same technologies can be used to conduct horrendous abuses by the state on innocent people. For example, going after cultural or religious groups. If we ever get a authoritarian or oppressive government, these capabilities -- currently used for "good" -- will rapidly pivot 180 to oppress and deny liberties.

I doubt you'd think that's so great, fatcat. You sure must have a lot of faith in future governments.


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## Retiredguy (Jul 24, 2013)

james4beach said:


> It's great that they're catching killers, but the same technologies can be used to conduct horrendous abuses by the state on innocent people. For example, going after cultural or religious groups. If we ever get a authoritarian or oppressive government, these capabilities -- currently used for "good" -- will rapidly pivot 180 to oppress and deny liberties.
> 
> I doubt you'd think that's so great, fatcat. You sure must have a lot of faith in future governments.



Yes, and be careful of the liberties and protections you want and want to protect because they will be used by your worst enemies,(and they may not be your gov't) in ways that you never imagined.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Retiredguy said:


> Yes, and be careful of the liberties and protections you want and want to protect because they will be used by your worst enemies,(and they may not be your gov't) in ways that you never imagined.


It's a risk you take.

There are many countries that disregard personal liberties in the name of safety and security of the state. You can look at China, Russia, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia for examples of this.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> It's great that they're catching killers, but the same technologies can be used to conduct horrendous abuses by the state on innocent people. For example, going after cultural or religious groups. If we ever get a authoritarian or oppressive government, these capabilities -- currently used for "good" -- will rapidly pivot 180 to oppress and deny liberties.
> 
> I doubt you'd think that's so great, fatcat. You sure must have a lot of faith in future governments.


first, i think its a lot more than just "it's great that they are catching killers" ... these are some of the worst human beings around and there are plenty plenty more of them out there

one researcher in the field estimates there may be "thousands" of serial killers active in the united states
http://www.newsweek.com/serial-kille...ow-many-718232

there will always be an asymmetry because we the people have to subordinate our power to the state in order to have an ordered and well functioning society ... any cop who stops has inordinate power over you like it or not

so the answer is good and appropriate laws that have strong protection for citizens and strong punishment for misuse

better to accept that surveillance ... on all of us (including the government since police action videos are changing the law enforcement landscape) is going to be ubiquitous (see david brins transparent society) and work to ensure that what he calls "core privacy" is preserved

the best answer lies in the realm of the social, the human and the political, not in the technological

nevertheless i am in favour of technological tools in the meantime and if it is priced right i will certainly buy your product

we don't disagree james, we are both in favour of strong civil liberties ... in the case of catching the golden state killer and the killer of the local couple from victoria we just disagree as to whether there was a civil liberties violation in the first place, i don't think so at all since the police used publicly available data and publicly available dna to test


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Whether or not police are using them, _bad guys_ are definitely accessing your private data as well.

MyHeritage has been hacked and about 92 million user accounts have been compromised. They do not claim DNA data has been compromised, but it's just a matter of time before hackers get that too:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/5/17430146/dna-myheritage-ancestry-accounts-compromised-hack-breach

At the very least, you should be wary about giving any private and personal information to *any* service, including a government-run one, because all of this data can be stolen. The bad guys have already stolen countless records from credit ratings agencies, credit card companies, department stores, etc. They've stolen countless super-sensitive records (names, personal histories, life stories) from government departments like the OPM.

All of our SIN numbers, banking/credit card stuff is already exposed. We can't help it, we're all in the same boat. But anything extra you make available (even to a private service or government database) is immediately at risk.

If you submit your genetic data to these web sites, this will be compromised too. I keep my personal data private because *I don't know where it might end up*, if I release it. Anything you submit anywhere can easily fall into the hands of thieves.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> Whether or not police are using them, _bad guys_ are definitely accessing your private data as well.
> 
> MyHeritage has been hacked and about 92 million user accounts have been compromised. They do not claim DNA data has been compromised, but it's just a matter of time before hackers get that too:
> https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/5/17430146/dna-myheritage-ancestry-accounts-compromised-hack-breach
> ...


all true ... my personal info, sin and social and everything else is floating around in the ether from i don't know how many hacks ... if you can, a credit freeze on everything is the way to go

our friends upload our contact data when they give permission for apps to use contacts ... facebook is building shadow profiles on non members as well as giving access to the phone companies and chinese companies

our browsers leave unique fingerprints which can track us even down to a personal level ... the list is long

non-cooperation where possible is great but the long term answer lies in good laws and strict punishment for violators

even then i think privacy as we know it is over


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

apple has said it will implement some nice privacy protocols in os12 and the new desktop os, mojave 

they will be bricking the cellbrite and graykey boxes by only allowing an hour to pass before requiring a password to connect via usb which will render these boxes useless

i am also happy to see that they are putting the kibosh on digital fingerprinting which i have disliked for sometime though not enough to pay for a vpn which i’m not even certain would stop it anyway

https://www.fastcompany.com/4058169...ust-pissed-off-to-better-protect-your-privacy


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Here's why none of us should want the government to have a massive database of fingerprints (DNA, whatever). It's because *police and government can make mistakes*, and the consequence of a mistake can be extremely severe -- like this man being detained for 8 months due to improper fingerprinting. He's now suing the govt for $10 million, and I hope he collects every penny.

A false fingerprint match destroyed this man's life. And it can happen to you, too:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...y-after-being-detained-eight-months-1.4703064

When police and government make mistakes processing your fingerprints/DNA, you're also going to have a hard time getting open disclosure and the power to check their work. We've already seen this happen in systems such as Do-Not-Fly lists (which you can neither query nor correct) and of course anything related to "national security" which gives the government a free pass to conceal details.


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## Retired Peasant (Apr 22, 2013)

'Tis true that mistakes can make a person's life hell. Take the case of Michael Usry https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-dna-of-a-killer-who-murdered-idaho-teen-angie-dodge/
However this case also points out that you won't be able to control whether your relatives use ancestry dna to submit their dna. How do you propose to do that, James?

It's how Michael was 'nabbed' - based on his father's DNA.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

james4beach said:


> Here's why none of us should want the government to have a massive database of fingerprints (DNA, whatever). It's because *police and government can make mistakes*, and the consequence of a mistake can be extremely severe -- like this man being detained for 8 months due to improper fingerprinting. He's now suing the govt for $10 million, and I hope he collects every penny.
> 
> A false fingerprint match destroyed this man's life. And it can happen to you, too:
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...y-after-being-detained-eight-months-1.4703064
> ...


I hope he gets a substantial settlement as well, and in a timely manner. According to the story, they never supplied him with the prints of the other guy, (so he couldn't defend himself). Clearly an abuse of power. Banning data bases is however, not really a solution. Lots of innocent people have been cleared by such data bases. What gets me is taht the fficials - the abuses of power - rarely, if ever, face any consequences. In lieu, I believe there needs to be an independent citizens review board with prosecutorial teeth to investigate abuses of power.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

that police and crime labs make mistake is a longstanding and universal problem ... 

but it has nothing to do with the issue of police accessing public databases to catch rapists and murderers ... the information the police used was put their voluntarily and even when they made matches they had to then obtain samples that were publicly available and follow with court orders and warrants etc ect

the answer is to create laws that hold the police and laboratories accountable when they make mistakes and work hard to improve our use of all of these techniques ... this is all technologically possible

that nigerian man should be made whole both by reputation and more, he should sue and win a substantial amount for police errors

but none of this should stop us form using legal techniques to take killers and rapists and terrorists off the streets

as pluto says these databases are also used to clear innocent people all the time


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

But police are not accountable, the way they're currently mining this data. Here's a new article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...are-searching-for-killers-in-your-family-tree



> In criminal cases, DNA evidence is sometimes misused or misinterpreted. But the implications of such DNA dragnets could extend beyond murder cases. Following the California arrest, some members of the genealogy community raised the possibility that, for example, police might use genetic data pulled from the web to track down women who had illegal abortions, as they did in the case of an abandoned fetus in Georgia this year.
> 
> “The police are just going ahead and doing this without any oversight,” said Debbie Kennett, a British genealogist who has authored several books on the subject.


Data mining is overwhelmingly a tool used by the prosecution, not on the defense side. Though sometimes someone can find a defense in DNA data, it's again an asymmetry. Police and intelligence use secretive methods to find "evidence" that implicates someone (might be misinterpreted or erroneous). Those who defend the accused do not have the ability to mine data to the same extent.

Someone who is poor, or has the disadvantage of assumed guilt (e.g. black, native, muslim, drug addict) does not have the ability to leverage these data mining approaches to defend themselves. *Therefore, the databases and mining become tools of oppression.*

This is true not just for DNA databases, but also for online surveillance, information collection through social media, big data mining, etc.

_Qualifications: I do research in this field, side-by-side with government people. I know what they are doing. The government pays billions of $ for it. Defense attorneys do not fund the work. These technologies are fundamentally about prosecution and finding bad guys, not clearing good guys -- it's all driven by cop mentality._


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

^
I'm happy that investegators have more precise methods of identifying bad guys. One would hope there will be fewer false convictions. 

The Innocence Project makes use of dna, among other methods, to clear the wrongfully convicted. 
https://www.innocenceproject.org


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james you are attacking a straw man ...

that police and government (and corporations) are building and using databases often unfairly against the citizenry is a completely different issue from the police using smart police work to access a publicly accessible database that was created by and with the express permission of the contributors ... again this is a public database ... nor was it built by or maintained by the police or government

i am not alone in believing that if the police didn't use every legal resource they could to catch this guy (the golden state killer) who killed 12 people and raped more than 50 they would be negligent and putting the public at further risk

and by the way dna evidence conclusively ruled him out as a suspect in the murder of a woman and her son in 1978: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/06/14/golden-state-killer-suspect-cleared-in-1978-murders.html

police and government should absolutely not be using databases against the citizenry, on this we agree, but this is a completely different issue ...

if we prevented the police by law from accessing this database this monstrous freak would still be at large barbecuing steak in his backyard for god sakes ... read about the case and about what he did to his victims


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former...-while-ordering-his-first-meal-as-a-free-man/

The case in the above link contains a labyrinth of issues. 

1.Incompetent police bullying to obtain a false confession by a guy whose DNA was not at the scene. 
2. Once they got the wrong guy in prison, the search continued for the real killer. They obtained a partial DNA match via an ancestry site, after which they commenced to persecute yet another innocent guy. 
3. real killer still at large. 

Overall, a case where the relevant government agencies are incompetent, and so puffed up with pride, they can't man up and make things right.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

using dna to verify refugee claims

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/can...na-ancestry-websites-to-investigate-migrants/


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Bloomberg is running an article today describing that FamilyTreeDNA (another one of these companies) has given the FBI access to its database of nearly 2 million profiles.
Major DNA Testing Company Sharing Genetic Data With the FBI

The big problem I see is the potential for having trouble and attention from the police for a completely innocent person, just because someone in their genetic line is suspected of a crime. Genetic similarity between people does not imply any kind of guilt, but police use of these databases creates that effect.

We all have a basic right to *not* be interrogated or harassed by government/police without reasonable suspicious of committing a crime. If I have a genetic relationship to a suspected criminal, that's not a valid reason to interrogate or subject me to police harassment.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Just another example of the brave new world of 'disruptive technology'. Act first, legal/moral issues take a back seat. 
Better hope you don't have bad genes though. 
There may be a minority report out there.


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