Abuse of DNA by police?
Discussion
Headline news in Denmark today was arrest of someone suspected of murder in 1990.
They were caught because the police had managed to extract some DNA from the victim’s clothing and compared it with their database. Apparently anyone who had their DNA taken in the past ten years (even if not charged or convicted) is included.
In this case the match was with someone who was the son of the suspect (like father like son!)
Do you think it is fair that people’s DNA is kept in the system even if they aren’t convicted?
They were caught because the police had managed to extract some DNA from the victim’s clothing and compared it with their database. Apparently anyone who had their DNA taken in the past ten years (even if not charged or convicted) is included.
In this case the match was with someone who was the son of the suspect (like father like son!)
Do you think it is fair that people’s DNA is kept in the system even if they aren’t convicted?
If it's within the law then 'abuse' would seem a little melodramatic.
David Fuller (the NHS mortician who was a double-murdering necrophiliac) was caught due to a familial match (his brother). IIRC his brother didn't have a conviction and his DNA was retained (I could be wrong).
Regardless, there are plenty of examples of people who aren't convicted whose DNA retention links them to crime later on.
On the other side there are privacy, innocence etc concerns. Although that invites the, 'should the police retain finger prints, a photo, name / any data without conviction?' Where is the line drawn?
I can see both sides of the coin.
David Fuller (the NHS mortician who was a double-murdering necrophiliac) was caught due to a familial match (his brother). IIRC his brother didn't have a conviction and his DNA was retained (I could be wrong).
Regardless, there are plenty of examples of people who aren't convicted whose DNA retention links them to crime later on.
On the other side there are privacy, innocence etc concerns. Although that invites the, 'should the police retain finger prints, a photo, name / any data without conviction?' Where is the line drawn?
I can see both sides of the coin.
I think the ethical considerations of the police having a large database of DNA is not so much them using it to match collected DNA to find criminals, but other uses that they may find for it.
When the technology allows, perhaps they would use it to profile people. Perhaps its found that people with a certain gene or combination of genes are 5% more probable than the average to commit some type of crime. To avoid getting too morbid, lets say grafitti.
So the police go and round up everyone locally with that specific combination of genes and start questioning, looking for alibis. Except one person doesn't have an alibi. They claim they were at home, sleeping. So the police dig deeper in to that person, search their property for spray cans, sieze their phone to search for messages or pictures of the grafitti and find out everything there is to know about them.
They're innocent of any and all crimes. Perfectly law abiding. But they've had their life invaded and turned upside down by the police because the police profiled them as a suspect based on DNA, and they couldn't immediately prove their innocence.
When the technology allows, perhaps they would use it to profile people. Perhaps its found that people with a certain gene or combination of genes are 5% more probable than the average to commit some type of crime. To avoid getting too morbid, lets say grafitti.
So the police go and round up everyone locally with that specific combination of genes and start questioning, looking for alibis. Except one person doesn't have an alibi. They claim they were at home, sleeping. So the police dig deeper in to that person, search their property for spray cans, sieze their phone to search for messages or pictures of the grafitti and find out everything there is to know about them.
They're innocent of any and all crimes. Perfectly law abiding. But they've had their life invaded and turned upside down by the police because the police profiled them as a suspect based on DNA, and they couldn't immediately prove their innocence.
An abuse of DNA would be saying it's a unique identifier of one specific person.
It's not.
And I'm not talking about identical twins, just the pure statistics of it means there around a 1 in 10,000 chance that someone shares the same DNA fingerprint - based on the way the fingerprint is determined.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234541/
It's not.
And I'm not talking about identical twins, just the pure statistics of it means there around a 1 in 10,000 chance that someone shares the same DNA fingerprint - based on the way the fingerprint is determined.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234541/
Rivenink said:
I think the ethical considerations of the police having a large database of DNA is not so much them using it to match collected DNA to find criminals, but other uses that they may find for it.
When the technology allows, perhaps they would use it to profile people. Perhaps its found that people with a certain gene or combination of genes are 5% more probable than the average to commit some type of crime. To avoid getting too morbid, lets say grafitti.
So the police go and round up everyone locally with that specific combination of genes and start questioning, looking for alibis. Except one person doesn't have an alibi. They claim they were at home, sleeping. So the police dig deeper in to that person, search their property for spray cans, sieze their phone to search for messages or pictures of the grafitti and find out everything there is to know about them.
They're innocent of any and all crimes. Perfectly law abiding. But they've had their life invaded and turned upside down by the police because the police profiled them as a suspect based on DNA, and they couldn't immediately prove their innocence.
There is one huge safeguard against this, and that is the potential for specific demographics to be highlighted in any results. The resulting political fallout from the police going out and rounding up a load of people all from a specific group of one sort of another would be seen, rightly, as utter suicide. It won’t happen.When the technology allows, perhaps they would use it to profile people. Perhaps its found that people with a certain gene or combination of genes are 5% more probable than the average to commit some type of crime. To avoid getting too morbid, lets say grafitti.
So the police go and round up everyone locally with that specific combination of genes and start questioning, looking for alibis. Except one person doesn't have an alibi. They claim they were at home, sleeping. So the police dig deeper in to that person, search their property for spray cans, sieze their phone to search for messages or pictures of the grafitti and find out everything there is to know about them.
They're innocent of any and all crimes. Perfectly law abiding. But they've had their life invaded and turned upside down by the police because the police profiled them as a suspect based on DNA, and they couldn't immediately prove their innocence.
caziques said:
Plenty of instances where DNA has exonerated someone.
If you don't want to be convicted of murder, don't do it. - I have no problem with the police using ancestry sites etc, does a lot more good than harm.
Because there have never been false convictions using DNA evidence.If you don't want to be convicted of murder, don't do it. - I have no problem with the police using ancestry sites etc, does a lot more good than harm.
The worrying thing about it is that DNA evidence is not infallible and where DNA is recovered from a crime scene if someone is matched they are then having to prove their innocence. Given the high profile cases recently, and the fact that the criminal defence system is falling apart, it’s not a system I trust. There is far too much chance of an innocent person being convicted on the basis of poor understanding of DNA evidence and a massive gap in the ability of people to defend themselves effectively. Just look at the Post Office scandal. How many people will go to prison because the police evidence is “your DNA was found there so it must be you” and being told to admit the offence for fear of a worse outcome if they fight it?
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