
Should the police be able to investigate your genetic family tree for any crime? - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/opinion/police-dna-warrant.html
======
LurkersWillLurk
I'm reminded of parallels between cell phone location privacy and genetic
tracking. The average person does not understand that they are creating a
record of everywhere they go when they have their cell phone on. The same is
true with your DNA - while it's true that you do in fact leave a literal trace
of your genes, you don't expect that you could be identified later on simply
by the fact that you had lunch.

What we really need is a legislative solution, but unfortunately I have low
expectations for Congress, seeing that Carpenter v. United States even had to
happen.

~~~
decoyworker
What would you legislate?

Your location is not private information and never has been. Not sure how you
could even legislate to make your DNA protected private information- under
HIPPA for instance, considering you leave it everywhere you go. Your
fingerprint is not private, your face is not private, and your DNA is not
private. I'm not sure how they could be.

~~~
village-idiot
Your location isn’t private if you’re observed in a location where you have no
expectation of privacy, i.e. outside. But if I’m at a friends house, I
absolutely have an expectation that my presence in their home is private to
the world at large.

The problem is that dragnet surveillance does not:

1\. Handle the subtleties of how we expect privacy to work.

2\. Require direct observation of someone in a context where there is no
expectation of privacy.

It just works all the time, and contains the ability to unmask private events
in the past.

~~~
leetcrew
your expectation of privacy is sort of inconsistent here. if you don't have an
expectation of privacy when your out in the world, and it's fair game for
people to observe you traveling to your friend's house, how can you expect
that your presence is private?

~~~
pixl97
My problem is the scale of the issue, at least when it comes to phones. If I
am at my friens the people involved are apt to forget almost everything in a
few days. The cellphone tracking system, in theory, will studiously remember
exactly where you are till the end of time by a company wit history of give or
selling said data to the government in secret.

~~~
bilbo0s
Well, they _have_ to give your location information to the government. I think
it's a bit naive to expect a company to keep your data secret from the Feds.
They're just as subject to the law as we are.

If we use electronic devices at all, we're just best advised to operate as if
the government has access to anything we say, write, or record on them. That
includes our locations. If you're going to see your weed man, or your
mistress, you probably want to leave it at home. And no, don't bother buying a
"burner" because they can track that too.

All that said, companies should try to keep your location information secret
from anyone _other_ than the government. One of the issues right now is that
they don't. They make good money using location to target ads for instance.

~~~
village-idiot
> Well, they have to give your location information to the government.

It's not like this requirement was an inevitable outcome of governments. We
can change laws.

------
cm2187
That's the case in France where DNA samples are taken on any person arrested,
whether they committed a crime or not, including demonstrators (or bystanders)
in a political march.

The national DNA database now includes over 5 percent of the population and it
is a great tool for the police since the authors of serious crimes typically
have almost always committed petty crimes before. It also means that you can
solve small crimes like burglaries with DNA.

It is a bit worrying from a privacy protection point of view though. And I
barely see this database ever questioned by the French press.

~~~
masklinn
> That's the case in France where DNA samples are taken on any person
> arrested, whether they committed a crime or not, including demonstrators (or
> bystanders) in a political march.

FWIW ~20 US states do the same, this was ruled legal in 2013 (Maryland v.
King, DNA collection is part of police booking procedure).

CODIS (the FBI's DNA database) contains more than 17 million non-forensic
profiles[0], that's also >5% of the population.

But wait, there's more!

The Department of Defense's own DNA database (DoDSR) has more than 50 million
records (collection started in the 80s and every applicant to a uniformed
service gets included), and since the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act
can be accessed by federal or military investigations for "the purpose of an
investigation or prosecution of a felony, or any sexual offense, for which no
other source of DNA information is reasonably available". So it can't
currently be searched / "wild matched" against an unknown sample but if
there's a suspect, a sample and no other DNA source then it's an option.

[0] [https://www.fbi.gov/services/laboratory/biometric-
analysis/c...](https://www.fbi.gov/services/laboratory/biometric-
analysis/codis/ndis-statistics)

~~~
searine
>The Department of Defense's own DNA database (DoDSR)

The reality of this is that it's just a big ass warehouse deep in the farmland
of Virginia which houses unprocessed tubes of DNA. Its like the end of Raiders
of the Lost Ark.

Sounds nefarious but it is actually a goldmine for genetics research.

~~~
village-idiot
Turns out even genetic databases need an index.

~~~
masklinn
As noted in the original comment, currently DoDSR can only be used for
nominative sampling aka you have a name and want a known generic sample (and
you have a federal or military judge allowing it). The limitations of the
medium / storage means it can't practically be used beyond that.

------
dade_
DNA should only be used to prove innocence and to corroborate other evidence.
Just because someone's DNA is there, doesn't mean they did something. It is
too easy to start planting DNA. If there is other evidence and their DNA is
there, then yeah. Book 'em Danno!

~~~
nezzor
Would you feel differently if your child’s murerer was on trial?

Not trying to be gross, just trying to shine light on the idea that judges are
in a difficult situation. They have to consider fairness for all parties
involved.

~~~
rtkwe
That question is one of the pit falls we have to avoid to preserve any chance
of avoiding a police surveillance state. "What would you allow if you were
maximally emotionally impacted by a crime" is basically a blank check for 100%
surveillance because inevitably any restriction on methods will eventually
allow some crime to go unsolved.

~~~
Aromasin
Exactly this. At worst, you need to at least taper the emotionally charged
question with the counter-point; "Would you feel differently if your child was
falsely accused of murder because of genetic comtamination?"

~~~
rtkwe
Yep, to see how badly things can go when 'scientific' evidence goes
unquestioned look at the mess that is stuff like bite pattern analysis which
gets presented as scientific but has really bad actual statistics.

Justice can't just be about catching people it has to also weigh the cost of
false positives and the effect that the methods have on society.

It's a constant issue with things like TOR, encryption, and alt currencies
like BTC. They can do a lot of good for repressed people but they're also
inevitably going to be used by people most people would agree are awful people
to protect themselves from justice. If you're developing those tools you have
to be ok with that just like we have to decide as a people where we're ok with
the balance between preventing crime/catching criminals and personal liberty
and privacy.

------
randaouser
I built a prototype of a Private Set Intersetion using elliptic curve
homomorphic encryption method for this very use case: The scenario goes 1) FBI
indexes the dna using MASH algorithm (minhash like locality sensitive hashing
of genomic sequences) of the person they are searching for. They then use
homomorphic encryption and post this encrypted data online with a bounty for
anyone to claim. 2)Now, individuals and corporations can try to claim the
bounty; they also run MASH on their dna databases and encrypt each mash index
using the same homomorphic strategy and submit it back to the FBI. 3)The FBI
can now complete the private set intersection algorithm on the encrypted data
and will only reveal information iff an assailants genealogy is found. The
remaining sequences appear cryptographically random and thus protect the
privacy of those persons.

I am currently working in blockchain space. If you want to know more feel free
to message me.

~~~
gloflo
Please stop making the world a worse place to live in.

------
buro9
I've heard it argued that the police and other authorities have the right to
know who you are.

Is this really the case? Does a representative of a government have the right
to your identity?

If so... is there an extent to which they can know who are you are? The
difference here between a vague answer, a trust based assertion, or even a
deep proof.

~~~
dangerface
There is a distinction between your identity(who you are) and your legal
identity(who the governments papers say you are). Your legal identity is
created with your birth certificate and ends with your death certificate.

Legaly you agreed to act under this legal identity when your birth certificate
was created but since you where too young to give consent its not legaly
binding.

Thats the argument but it would need to go through a judge who wont care about
technicality of law as the law itself is a technicality to justify government.

~~~
DanBC
This is direct from Freeman on the land conspiracy theory, and it's a legal
nonsense.

~~~
dangerface
If this has been debunked I would like to know and stop repeating it, can you
provide links?

------
cameronbrown
Genetic data affects not just an individual but their family tree as well.
Maybe a warrant should have to be issued for all of them to get access to this
data.

~~~
enriquto
But wouldn't this conflict to the (natural?) right of an individual to publish
their own data? Do I need a permission from all my family tree to be allowed
to publish the contents of my DNA?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
If, outside of our control, your password and mine matched except for one
character and that near match was public knowledge, would you object to me
publishing my password here in cleartext?

There's a big difference between publishing your own thoughts - which may have
nothing to do with what your family thinks - and publishing your DNA, which is
inextricably tied to that of your family. It's my data, which I have a
"natural" right to share as I see fit, but it's also very similar to yours,
which you have a right to keep private. These rights are incompatible, one has
to give.

~~~
leetcrew
> If, outside of our control, your password and mine matched except for one
> character and that near match was public knowledge, would you object to me
> publishing my password here in cleartext?

I would certainly prefer that you not do that, but I don't think I should be
able to to _compel_ you not to. this is sort of a weird example because
there's no clear benefit to posting your password.

a similar example: you and I both live in the same apartment building. you
really hate my best friend and don't want them to know where you live. my best
friend already knows that you and I live in the same apartment building.
should you be able to prevent me from giving my address to my friend so we can
hang out?

~~~
dcole2929
Ok how about imagine that friend was stalker. Someone potentially dangerous to
me and those around me. They know we live in the same building so yes in that
case it would make perfectly sense that I could compel you not to give away
your address to that person.

~~~
leetcrew
imo that's only reasonable if we're actually roommates. if not, you should
pursue a restraining order against this person, not try to restrict me from
releasing my own address.

------
xenocyon
Data scientist here. I'm surprised nobody here has yet mentioned the false-
positive issue with trawling a large dataset: even a _tiny_ false positive
rate leads to a very high probability of convicting an innocent person if you
mine a large enough database.

~~~
chopin
But the only reason for such a database _is_ to get a conviction. Case solved.

------
whack
Many of the comments here seem to assume that the use of DNA tests without the
accused's consent is a bad thing. I fail to see why. We use facial features
and eyewitness-testimony to ID criminal dependents all the time. No one argues
that consent/warrant is needed in order to ID someone using their facial
features. More generally speaking, I fail to see the harm that can arise from
using DNA to identify suspects, whereas the benefits are so much more
compelling.

~~~
rocqua
DNA is only circumstantial. Being a suspect is harmful. Hence DNA testing
could make innocent people suspects and thus harm them.

Since harming innocents is bad, there is a downside to wide usage of DNA
tests. Whether tgat downside weighs up against the upside is a debate. But we
need to acknowledge there is a debate to be had.

~~~
whack
Sure, but I think it's also worth acknowledging that suspects get identified
all the time on the basis of circumstantial evidence far flimsier than DNA
traces. The "burden of proof" needed for the police to investigate someone as
a suspect is extremely low, for good reasons.

------
zebraflask
Interestingly enough, I recently received a bulk email from GEDMatch.com about
exactly this subject.

They changed their TOS so that now users need to explicitly opt in to sharing
their data with law enforcement. That's good for user privacy, but it does
make me wonder what they were doing before this change.

~~~
Real_S
The Daily did a podcast interviewing the founder of GEDmatch.

Part1: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/podcasts/the-daily/dna-
ge...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/podcasts/the-daily/dna-genealogy-
crime.html)

Part2: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/podcasts/the-
daily/geneal...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/podcasts/the-
daily/genealogy-dna-crime-privacy.html)

------
atoav
I think whether you find this useful or dangerous hinges entirely on your
perspective on governments and history.

If you are sure governments are mostly a force for good and democracy is
suited to keep it that way indefinitly, overpowered permissions like these
have no real downside.

As engineers we certainly also ask ourselves how systems fail when something
goes wrong, even if all we do is to prevent this. This kind of power is not
only a possibility for a state to become more powerful, it is also the perfect
ethnic genocide toolkit and therefore something that makes it substancially
more dangerous for a state to fail.

Separation of powers, the oversight of the press, limited power and
information for the state over the individual without good reason – all these
mechanisms are there _for a systemic reason._ These reasons are sometimes only
to make it harder for governments to drift into unlawful and unjust behaviour.
Any change to the balance of power between executive, juridicative,
legislative ans public should be carefully considered before executed.

So this must _really_ pay off in order to be useful enough to justify the risk
that comes with it, including the (in?)effectiveness of punishments and the
cost of prevention through other means than harsh punishment.

------
opwieurposiu
Sure, but we need to publish the DNA and contact info of anyone who becomes a
police officer. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

------
haxorito
In broad sense all investigation techniques are privacy invasion:
surveillance, search, detention or arrest. I think we should let law
enforcement use DNA sources. But it should be heavily regulated, and under
heavy control.

Let’s say anonymous inquiry that just return yes/no and then you need court to
reveal identity.

------
basicplus2
All those DNA tests with ancestry.com are also free fodder for the five eyes
and law enforcement

------
mikece
Seems to me the legal question is whether it's a reasonable search. If a court
rules in the affirmative that poses a second question: search what, and does
that imply that right for police to collect DNA evidence in order to conduct a
thorough search?

------
el_cujo
I'm glad the Original Night Stalker was caught, but I found it very disturbing
he was caught based on another family member doing one of those ancestory DNA
things.

Also, offtopic, but that dendrogram in the first picture is a very incestual
family tree.

------
mikkom
> If the police felt free to use it in an assault case, why not shoplifting,
> trespassing or littering?

For the same reason dna tests are not already used for shoplifting,
trespassing or littering?

~~~
MichaelApproved
And that reason is...?

~~~
dragonwriter
DNA has almost no probative value in those cases, since they almost never
involve a sample which can be genotyped that has a high probability of being
linked to a particular crime.

------
sysbin
I think the justice system needs to be reformed to a rehabilitation modal and
before it's able to investigate one's genetic family tree for any crime. I've
studied neuro science and the philosophy of determinism to realize people
don't have any real control for their actions. So right now I think we're
failing when it comes to humanity.

