California Expands DNA Identification Policies

The Los Angeles Times is reporting on a new California policy to match the DNA of suspected criminals to the criminal's family members in order to use them as investigative leads. Use of partial DNA matching is drawing fire over privacy concerns from citizens and law experts. FBI officials are hesitating as well, though their concern is that the courts will not accept such techniques. Quoting: "The policy, which takes effect immediately, is designed to work like this: The state's crime lab will tell police about DNA profiles that come up during routine searches of California's offender database and closely resemble, but do not match, the DNA left at a crime scene. (Previously, the state refused to tell police about these partial matches.) When such partial matches do not surface or fail to produce a lead, a more customized familial search can be done in which computer software scans the database proactively for possible relatives. The software measures the chance of two people being related based on the rarity of the markers they share."

And so it continues...

[Anonymous Coward]

A little background: In November 2004, a frightened California public passed proposition 69 [smartvoter.org], which allowed the state to maintain a DNA database of its citizens. The DNA samples are taken when you are arrested at the booking along with fingerprints and mug shots.

This means that you don't ever have to be convicted- hell, you don't even have to be charged- to have your DNA added to this database. People who are wrongly accused do NOT automatically have their DNA expunged from the database.

When do the DNA-sequence-hashed social security numbers come out again?

Hmmm... Perhaps there's a bright side (for some)?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they ever bring this to Ontario, anyone adopted is on safe ground! The records are illegal to release, even to the point of denying access to updated medical information. I can't be fingered this way, since it's illegal for the government to tell me who my adopted parents are, therefore, it's illegal to use the information in a court case.

I never thought there'd be a bright side to that...

Re:easy to see...

[sedmonds]

Except that he does not have probable cause to believe that both warrants would yield results. This is comparable to getting search warrants for everyone in the county named John, if one masked bandit in a robbery is referred to by another as "John".