Public DNA Databases Are Now Overflowing With Law Enforcement, and We’re Better Used to It.
Law enforcement and genetic genealogists wasted no time after public DNA databases brought up a suspected Golden State killer last month. A forensic company announced a service to conduct this analysis on a mass scale , and the GEDmatch DNA database has already changed its privacy policy to allow law enforcement to use it. Remember, even if you are not in these databases , your cousins are probably there .
Forensic company Parabon NanoLabs told Buzzfeed that they have uploaded about 100 crime scene samples to GEDmatch in search of culprit and unidentified victims. Their service takes samples provided by law enforcement and processes DNA in a similar way to 23andMe and Ancestry . The result is a data file that they can load into GEDmatch.
GEDmatch is popular with people studying their ancestry and adult adoptive children looking for their biological parents. You download a data file from a testing service, and the system helps you find other people whose DNA matches yours. This is a small database, so it is unlikely that you will get a direct result, but chances are that you will at least find a few distant relatives who will help narrow your search.
There are other DNA databases out there, and it’s safe to say that law enforcement and forensic companies have adopted similar strategies wherever possible.
What’s next
A hundred samples a month is nothing. If this method works, it will likely become commonplace for police departments across the country. GEDmatch recently updated its policy to explicitly allow law enforcement to search the database with some restrictions:
When you upload raw data to GEDmatch, you agree that the raw data is one of the following:
- Your DNA;
- The DNA of the person whose legal guardian you are;
- The DNA of the person who gave you specific permission to upload their DNA to GEDmatch;
- The DNA of a deceased person you know;
- DNA obtained and cleared by law enforcement agencies to: (1) identify the perpetrator of a violent crime against another person; or (2) identify the remains of a deceased person;
- An artificial DNA kit (if and only if: (1) it is for research purposes; and (2) it is not used to identify anyone in the GEDmatch database); or
- DNA derived from an artifact (if and only if: (1) you have reasonable grounds to believe that the Original Data is DNA from a previous owner or user of the artifact, and not from a living person; and (2) that previous owner or user of the artifact you know that he died).
“Violent crime” is defined as murder or sexual assault.
However, GEDmatch can change the policy at any time.
On the one hand, it’s great that murderers and rapists can be held accountable and families closed off for their missing loved ones. On the other hand, I never agreed to put my DNA in the law enforcement database – but now fragments of it are probably already there, thanks to third, fourth or fifth cousins who had no idea that their ancestor file would ever be used like this way.