First up this week, I want to update you on a story that I’ve been watching closely in recent months: law enforcement’s use of consumer genetic databases ostensibly meant for genealogy enthusiasts. The new forensic approach is cracking cold cases and putting killers behind bars — while raising tough questions about the tradeoffs for genetic privacy.
In the most famous DNA-enabled arrest, announced last spring, California investigators used a free open-source genetic database to track down the alleged Golden State Killer; they did so by creating a fake profile and name, without the knowledge of those running the website, called GEDMatch.
But soon after, a DNA testing company called FamilyTreeDNA quietly began allowing the FBI to search its database of more than a million consumer genetic profiles, according to a scoop from BuzzFeed News last week. It’s the first known instance of a company voluntarily cooperating with such investigations. FamilyTreeDNA users and their genetic relatives didn’t consent to the searches, nor were they informed.
So, will the news sour consumers on at-home DNA testing?
It may depend on whether people see the industry as a monolith. In practice, it is not, and other big companies like Silicon Valley giant 23andMe have stricter privacy policies and practices. As if to heighten the contrast, FamilyTreeDNA got promptly kicked out of a self-policing privacy consortium for DNA testing companies. But if consumers don’t see that contrast, their confidence could fall, and so too may spit kit sales across the industry.
The question is whether consumers are willing to give up some degree of privacy if it also means doing so will help law enforcement get killers off the street. After all, of the 22 forensic profiles that law enforcement agencies have so far uploaded FamilyTreeDNA’s database, at least one of them has already resulted in an arrest, of a suspect accused of raping a 9-year-old girl and a woman in Southern California in the 1990s.
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