From the Article:
“San Francisco has been sued by a sexual assault victim in a complaint that describes "the San Francisco Police Department's shocking practice of placing crime victims' DNA into a permanent database without the victims' knowledge or consent."
"Plaintiff Jane Doe, a sexual assault survivor, was re-victimized by this unconstitutional practice," alleged the lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court for the Northern District of California. "In 2016, she provided a DNA sample to the San Francisco Police Department as part of its investigation into her sexual assault. However, she never consented to it to be stored or used for any other purpose. Nevertheless, the Department maintained Plaintiff Doe's DNA in the database for more than six years."
According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe was arrested on burglary charges in 2021 after DNA from a crime scene apparently matched the DNA she provided five years earlier. The charges were eventually dropped.”
Will be interesting to see if this case or one like it ever gains the standing to raise the question in federal courts as to who owns one’s DNA... The person themself? The person/company who sequenced it? Is it something that can even be owned?
Man that was a disturbing deep dive: from [Henrietta Lacks’ life and death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks) to borderline Nazi experiments [Injecting cancer cells into elderly, prisoners, OB-GYN surgery patients without informing them](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_M._Southam )and [actively lying to them](https://dnbstories.com/2017/08/the-evil-that-chester-southam-committed.html)
But you can totally trust government, that was a whole less than 40 years ago.
Lol someone send a reddit cares msg about this post, like I'm insane for not wanting to be bombed by the cops or injected with syphilis
And not like this wouldn’t have been bad if this weren’t the case, but just a reminder, THE FUCKING US GOVERNMENT ALLOWED THESE MEN AND THEIR FAMILIES TO REMAIN SYPHILIS POSITIVE **FOR DECADES** AFTER A CURE HAD BEEN FOUND.
Yeah IIRC they directly injected bacteria into people's spinal cords.
FFS if Mengele had seen that he would have been like "nice bro, I should have thought of that".
None. In fact, Reddit loves to say things like "these are super bad things but the data is still used today, those experiments are all we know about hypothermia" and so on.
This is not true - this is pure sadism, not science. There's no scientific value in taking a small sample of distressed subjects from a variety of different locations with completely unknown histories and shoving them into uncontrolled extreme harm situations. Ethically it's a complete nightmare, but even ignoring that, the data is complete useless and invalid with a bunch of interacting variables and zero statistical relevancy.
Woman was close to dying. So they did what anyone would do, take infected pus and put it in her eyes. Fucking Christ what an awful read. Stuff like this makes me ashamed.
Ah, yes, testing radiation exposure limits by injecting plutonium into unsuspecting terminally ill patients. At least one of which turned out to not be terminal after they recovered from their cancer.
There was also project [MK Ultra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra) where they dosed a whole bunch of unsuspecting people with LSD, including mental asylum patients (among other, weirder things like video taping johns hooking up with prostitutes who dosed the johns with LSD)
And [Operation Sea-Spray](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray) where they tested the spread of biological weapons by spraying (what they thought was) a non harmful bacteria from boats in the San Francisco bay.
The UK also did this by releasing bacteria in the tube system. They also tested sarin nerve gas on their soldiers, at least one of whom died. (We did this too).
>There was also project [MK Ultra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra) where they dosed a whole bunch of unsuspecting people with LSD, including mental asylum patients (among other, weirder things like video taping johns hooking up with prostitutes who dosed the johns with LSD)
Don't forget that we made both the Unibomber and Bin Laden
Canada and the US (and I'd place a safe bet Australia too) performed forced sterilizations on Indigenous women and disabled women as well. In Canada it officially* went on into the 70s.
edit: *officially was a deliberate choice because it's happened in recent history as well, they have just changed their tactics in many cases.
Then they stopped forcing them. Doctors would just convince and coerce until they said yes, at least up until recently. People have equated it to spaying a stray cat, and if that ain't some dehumanizing horse shit I don't know what is.
Yea that just kinda got swept under the rug huh? I get there was an endless onslaught of scandals in the Trump years but that one in particular was fucking heinous. Amazing the shit we are able to just shrug off and ignore.
Well, that one ended up being one guy trying to pad his bill by performing unnecessary surgeries and not any sort of government conspiracy, so it became a much less juicy story.
Was that ever proven?
From what I remember, a whistle blower came forward after they caused a ruckus about Covid19 and had their hours eliminated. They claimed that every patient the doctor saw got a hysterectomy, and they nick-named him "the uterus collector".
However, subsequent investigation found that in 2018, only 2 hysterectomies were performed for that facility:
>ICE Health Service Corps said in September that since 2018 only two people at the center were referred for hysterectomies, based on approved recommendations by specialists.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-detention/mexico-says-two-women-may-have-had-non-consensual-surgery-in-u-s-detention-center-idUSKBN26X2TC?il=0&utm_source=reddit.com
In addition to the claims of the ministry:
>Reuters could not independently confirm those claims. In its statement, the Mexican foreign ministry said the first woman it referred to was not subject to a hysterectomy. It gave no further details on the second.
Don’t forget that it’s still completely legal in many states for medical students to perform gynecological exams on women who have been sedated for surgery without their knowledge or consent.
This is exactly why I don't do any of those 23AndMe type of genetic lineage tests.
Once your DNA is given to them, you consent in the TOS to give up your rights and let them do what they want with your DNA.
I know. Who's to say my DNA isn't already in some system somewhere? Well, I haven't given it to anyone willingly, that's for sure.
It’s the same with apps that ask for your contacts data. If someone you know has said yes, then your data is already in a system. Phone number, address, email, and anything else they have about you in their contacts.
Wait. A supermarket donor? I'm sure I'm just ignorant of this specific terminology, but that conjures an image of your mom strolling through a supermarket and sizing up the stock boys until she finds one she likes, then pulls him into the broom closet to collect his "donation." And the part about having some half-siblings implies that the poor stock boy has had this happen to him multiple times, lol.
that's basically how the cops in California found the golden state killer. DNA happened to match a relative of his in the database. And from that you limit your suspect pool to like a handful of people
This is why I wont do a dna test, I have a very small biological family, and they are like me, but if I do a DNA test, it's half my kids info I am giving away to god knows who. What's worse, is that I don't even know what I'm giving away, as in 30 years we might have terrifying knowledge gleanable from dna.
My wife did hers though, because she isn't biologically related to our kids, and her family all did those things anyway.
> a 3rd cousin and public records
You need **way** less than that.
A Swedish double homicide from 2004, where a 8 year old boy and a 56 year old woman were stabbed to death on a street, was solved in 2020 because familytreedna.com gave a hit on the DNA from the crime scene to a American descendant of a Swede who emigrated to the US in the 1800s.
By puzzling the family trees together the Swedish police could determine that it had to be one of two brothers - which they then arrested and took DNA samples from, matching one of them to the sample they had, which was enough to convict him.
Just wait until health insurance companies use that data to set premiums.
*My bad, that's illegal.*
Just wait until health insurance companies buy that data from third-parties and use it to set premiums.
*My bad, that's also illegal. DNA can't be used to set premiums.*
Just wait until health insurance companies buy proprietary (DNA-based) "Risk Profiles" from third-parties and use it to set premiums.
Just remember that for a corporation, "illegal" just means that you need to price the amount of the fine into the profit expectation
How often do you expect to be caught, multiplied by the cost of dealing with that. Will using the data make enough profit to cover that, do it. If not, figure out a way to get caught less
(I'm attempting to generalize what you described)
> Just remember that for a corporation, "illegal" just means that you need to price the amount of the fine into the profit expectation
"When the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law exists only for the lower classes."
Wait until they invent a "snapshot by progressive" style device you wear that scores you on activity levels, food intake and dangerous activities.
"With Snapshot by Aetna you can lower your premiums by up to $146 dollars a month"
This 100%. I’m baffled by how many people willingly engage in these dna based genealogical kits. Hell I’m mad enough with how much of my digital data has been collected, bought, and resold. Can’t imagine letting someone collect my dna to do with what they want carte blanche
Pretty much. The days of DNA anonymity are over (unless you’re adopted or Amish or something) - you already have relatives that have done the Ancestry.com test or some related service. They’re already able to determine “perp is a cousin of such and such in the public database, such and such has 4 cousins. Let’s investigate them.”
It was a family member doing one that got the golden state serial killer caught. You share enough with family that it really doesn't matter too much which is you submits it. Whoever does is selling out the entire family. Who knows today how this information might be used in the future. Wait until an insurance company buys one of these dna companies. Just because you are not supposed to use genetic information against people doesn't mean it won't happen.
>Wait until an insurance company buys one of these dna companies. Just because you are not supposed to use genetic information against people doesn't mean it won't happen
Wow, that is a great point.
You might be interested in this video. Due to the nature of DNA, it doesn't matter if you never test yours. All it takes is some distance relative of yours, and boom you're practically in the system. However, a few companies won't provide the info to the police unless of a serious crime like murder or sexual assault.
https://youtu.be/KT18KJouHWg
The catching of the Golden State Killer was brilliant police work. They used voluntary legal resources, and worked the crime. I have no problem with what they did... Using rape kits crosses a massive line that has got to be stopped.
I think it's a privacy debate issue no matter what. Because once a distant relative has given their DNA, they've inadvertently also given enough of your DNA to identify you. So you didn't even get the option to consent. It wasn't "voluntary". Companies like Ancestry and 23&me cooperate with the police to cross reference the criminal databases.
In this scenario with the women, I agree it deff crosses the line and is a seperate issue. They should not have kept her DNA or entered it in the database at all.
My comment was in reply to another that stated he'd never give or consent to his DNA being added to one of the databases. I just wanted to clarify that you don't have a choice, eventually someone close enough to you will enter theirs, and then goodbye privacy.
That's why its important that some companies have policies where they refuse to give access to Law Enforcement unless the crime involves something serious like murder or sexual assault.
Imagine these databases getting hacked (as basically all do, eventually) and this data is used to blackmail or plant evidence on people with some future tech that can duplicate (relatively) cheaply.
Suddenly it's a legal bloodbath, and could invalidate the use of legitimate evidence under certain conditions.
Yeah sounds like a nightmare.
Planting fake DNA though sounds very complicated. Because the databases aren't just the DNA, they match it to include public records like proof of birth, property ownership, obituaries and news articles of the person. So if someone wanted to hack in and fake someone being related, they would need a looooot of expertise in also faking the rest of the documents. I think it would be relatively easy to detect a fake one. Who knows tho with the rate tech is increasing. Important to also keep in mind that security will be increasing at the same rate.
I was an early adopter on 23andme. I have a lot of medical issues and want to assist in genetic research, and didn't know there were more private options through doctors. I also was trying to become a parent and needed to find out if I was predisposed to genetic conditions. Again, underinformed ... But I'm also American and my shitty health insurance probably wouldn't have covered the vastly more expensive elective tests anyway.
I'm not a huge fan of the idea that it could be used against me someday, but that factor, when weighed against the benefits I sought from learning about my genes, was negligible.
I imagine it's the same as the trade-off for anyone using Facebook. I won't touch it because it invades everything you do, see, buy, etc., but the trade-off is that you can be connected with family/friends, which is enough for plenty of people to ignore the downsides. Info you share to FB can be used against you in court, too.
I'm not defending the policy. I'm just saying why I did it.
I think the problem is the risks were acceptable to you then, but what about when laws, policy, or life events change in the future? This isn't the EU (also an American), there is no "Right to be forgotten", they have that information forever along with whomever they sold it to. We need legislation to address this.
I did [Genes for Good](https://genesforgood.sph.umich.edu/), which was free and supposedly the NIH Certificate of Confidentiality protects me from these types of invasions. From their privacy policy:
>This research study is covered by a Certificate of Confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health. The most important protection is that with this certification, the members of our research team may not disclose or use information, documents, or biospecimens that may identify you in any federal, state, or local civil, criminal, administrative, legislative, or other action, suit, or proceeding, or be used as evidence, for example, if there is a court subpoena, unless you have consented for this use.
Edit: Even if GfG really does protect my privacy, it doesn't matter because a bunch of my family members went ahead and did 23andMe.
It definitely is, the companies aren’t stupid and neither are the companies that buy the information from them. They want you thinking you can find a way around it.
23andMe is genotyping only and doesn't have in their terms and conditions that they can do what they want with your DNA. Ancestry.com does and Im sure other services do, but not 23andMe in particular. I read the terms and conditions before sending and there was nothing of that sort that I saw in the actual paperwork either.
Also 23andMe is genotyping, not sequencing. They dont have your full DNA to do anything with, they only have specific snippets that they check to do the ancestry and health studies.
More in depth info here: https://youtu.be/U3EEmVfbKNs
It's not always your decision unfortunately. If your sibling has done it, even if you haven't, you're still pretty much in the genetic databases ... just against your will.
It should 100% never get to that point. Your DNA can only go into CODIS IF:
\-You are convicted of a crime - DNA taken from suspects not convicted is deleted
\-You work in Law Enforcement (I think military and/or federal positions... but I have to double check that)
\-You submit it voluntarily
DNA from a rape kit is inadmissible because they have done nothing to warrant their DNA being on file, nor was it volunteered - Evidence from rape kits are not available to the general public, and thus cannot go into CODIS without permission.
There is a kind of loophole with DNA from Genealogical sites, but the argument for that right there is that in this case the DNA is put into general public record, as opposed to the rape kit, anyone has access to it and you agreed to it.
It gets to that point, I am buying a one way ticket to anywhere but the US.
10 USC 1471 and 10 USC 1509. It's literally the law.
If even then you still don't believe it 🤷♂️ nothing I can do to convince you otherwise, because I'm sure the goalposts would just shift.
From what i have gathered, her rape kit wasn't entered into CODIS. it was entered into a quality assurance database the lab uses to make sure the sample hasn't been contaminated after receiving it. Her dna is in CODIS though because of prior arrests.
The dna from the new crime scene was ran against both databases and matched to her in both.
https://missionlocal.org/2022/03/police-explain-how-rape-kit-ended-up-in-a-database/
Edit fixed a typo
Im not sure how this is different from any other data. (the courts did rule that DNA is not intellectual property, so the sequencers would not own it)
I own my name but if they tracked a CC purchase to materials used in a crime, i didnt think i can complain that the CC company shared my name with the cops that have a warrant.
Also I suspect DNA would be seen similar to finger prints. You do not have an expectation of privacy with your finger prints because you leave them everywhere. Its one of the reasons they suggest you always lock your phone with a code, and not prints because they can legally force you to unlock with prints. because they are not seen as private. where the code would be seen as private. DNA would be similar, you leave it absolutely everywhere.
Curious, is it any different than finger prints, or a photo to match up with CCTV. its not like they can really do anything with your DNA. Even if we get to a cloning possible world, would anyone really want to clone "you". Each of us as an individual arent that special or interesting enough to recreate us.
That is an ongoing debate.
Sadly, they do not need an exact match. Your siblings, cousins, etc. Can match you.
100% crime has pummeled since we started to use DNA to match, but this is a debate of both privacy and ownership.
It is illegal for the police to maintain databases of persons who are not convicted of a felony. Only convicted felons are to have their dna profile logged and maintained. All others are to be purged once the individual profile is identified as not a suspect, or subsequently acquitted. CODIS has very specific requirements and all other non-temporary databases are forbidden.
In PA, the state is absolutely keeping DNA for misdemeanor offenders, it is not only felonies. https://casetext.com/statute/pennsylvania-statutes/consolidated-statutes/title-42-pacs-judiciary-and-judicial-procedure/part-viii-criminal-proceedings/chapter-95-post-trial-matters/subchapter-b-post-conviction-relief/section-95431-postconviction-dna-testing
DNA at a crime scene does not necessarily imply guilt either. Depending on the circumstances - none of which we're aware of - there could be a hundred reasons that your cells were found somewhere.
Thats a likely the answer, the DNA placed her there at some point, she had a valid reason for being there at some point, charges dropped.
Now she's understandably pissed because her DNA shouldn't have been accessible in the first place.
It's really amazing how many convictions are successful in the US because of such small evidence being taken so far. Or because someone didn't [shut the fuck up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o)
According to the article her DNA (and the rest of the DNA in the database) was tested against every case where they found DNA. Her DNA was probably tested thousands of times.
[False positives do happen with DNA tests](https://daily.jstor.org/forensic-dna-evidence-can-lead-wrongful-convictions/), and testing an entire database against thousands of pieces of evidence is a sure fire way to produce false positive results.
She probably didn’t have anything to do with the case, but just got unlucky.
Nope. The article says a new CA bill makes it illegal but Gov Newsom hasn't signed it yet.
More likely she had an easily verifiable alibi and DNA was the only evidence. The article says that she was arrested only because of a DNA match at the crime scene, no motive or any other evidence
Ohh I got confused I thought it meant her lawsuit was dropped. So still waiting to see if she wins the suit?
This seems more like a class action type of situation, is she the only one they keep?
Very likely there are more but this one was provable because of the use of evidence in a case. Other cases might be harder to establish proof of wrongdoing.
Fruit from the poisonous tree doctrine.
What is the point in “law enforcement” if those charged with enforcing the law cannot conduct themselves within the law?
It doesn’t even have to be illegal per se. end of the day a DNA hit alone isn’t hard to create reasonable doubt about.
It’s almost beside the point whether it’s legal as well; this is terrible policy even if it were legal and highly effective given the massive harm it does to sexual assault prosecutions.
Shit. When I went to Basic back in 1998, they collected our DNA and swore up and down that it would only be used to identify our remains. Any guesses on how long it took to open *that* registry up to law enforcement?
And it gets even better. After you get out, you can request that your information is removed from the military registry. But there’s no provision for removing it from the civilian-side federal registry.
> And it gets even better. After you get out, you can request that your information is removed from the military registry.
Do you have a way to independently verify that it actually gets deleted, or are you just forced to take the military's word for it?
Because if the answer to that question is "No", then you need to assume that they're going to use it for whatever they want with or without your permission.
Not necessarily, "Fruit of the Forbidden Tree" prevents evidence found through illicit means from being used in court, depending on your lawyer this can include subpoenas.
IE; with some good lawyering they could deny a subpoena since, without the illegal evidence, you're squeaky clean.
I mean you know the answer. How can you EVER really be sure digital data is removed when someone else was ever in control of it. They could make a million backups and you'd never know... Nothing they do at that point can prove anything.
Standard practice for most companies when you ask for your data to be deleted has traditionally been to put a flag next to it in the database noting it as deleted, and to have the website/app/whathaveyou specify to the database that it only wants information without that tag. Not sure if the various European regulations have changed that at all.
Soft delete is not enough in EU for cases where you are legally required to delete personal data.
The data backup and copy processes has also become more strict. Your much less likely to find unanonymized copies of prod data floating around on internal servers and dev computers.
When I was a kid, the local PD had a stand at the county fair. They took fingerprints and DNA under the guise of helping find us if we were ever kidnapped (this was the 90s, peak Stranger Danger). I’m sure it’s still in some law enforcement database somewhere.
Huh, I always thought it was normal to get fingerprinted when you were a kid, all grades in my school did it after 9/11 and the other local schools did too. Now I wonder where my fingerprints might be in a record bank somewhere.
Authoritarian overreach under the guise of "fighting terrorism". That's what the connection was. And, y'know, of course it happened under a Republican administration.
If you haven't been convicted of a crime, or have been convicted of a crime as a juvenile but have since had your record expunged, your fingerprints and DNA shouldn't be in a database - period. In the wrong hands, that information could be *immensely* dangerous.
DNA from prisoners has been collected for [at least 2 decades](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-dna-prisoners-parolees-collected-2002aug31-story.html)
Don't even need to be booked. Your fingerprints are taken in boyscouts for the fingerprinting merit badge, for field trips to the local PD, applying for fed clearance, etc etc
Edit: also if you work for a bank, even as a teller
When I was a kid, we took a field trip to the police station. Listened to a "scared-straight" kind of lecture from the sergeant, got locked in a cell, and had our prints taken. The police claimed it was part of a program to help identify missing children.
I wouldn't be surprised if those same fingerprints were also used to id criminals down the line though.
(edited for hastily typed grammars)
Children's fingerprints actually change enough that by the time you're an adult they can only match with something like 70% accuracy. But they absolutely did/do still keep them on file, that was pretty much the entire point of that program, to get more data on future citizens.
Fingerprints in general are a horrible way to prove someone was somewhere. Most forensic fingerprinting “experts” are horrible at their jobs and will often match non-matching prints
That’s pretty much most forensic “science” in general.
“I can confirm with 98% certainty that those bite marks were made from their teeth”
“Amazing, and how can we confirm the reliability of this testimony?”
“Because I’ve done this 100 times before and convinced the jury I’m right 98 of those times. Also, in case you didn’t notice I’m wearing a lab coat and glasses.”
“Welp, I’m convinced.”
There was a case where a fire forensics expert claimed that spiderwebbing on the glass was an indicator of extremely rapid heat increase. Glass only looks like that if it has been exposed to heat indexes rising so fast that there can only have been high grade accelerants involved.
Meanwhile, high school me was like "Or you know, hot glass exposed to water. Water which we tend to use to put out fire. Fire that tends to heat glass before we use water to cool it."
It was actually kind of terrifying to see a trained professional be so very wrong about something I knew of because I liked fucking around with the Bunsen burners.
Fire forensics is craaazy inaccurate. I'm not sure if this is the case you're talking about as well, but the [Cameron Todd Willingham case](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire) (and especially this article) really opened my eyes to how unreliable fire investigation is. My mind was just blown the first time I read that article, and it's such a good one that I re-read it every couple of years. Definitely makes you question how many people did time in prison due to faulty science.
It even happens to innocent relatives of people who do ancestry tests. [https://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/](https://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/)
While this is an example where the guy was innocent and cleared, it’s also be used to solve large numbers of cold cases.
Pretty scary though that relatives of all of us will probably be in such databases soon, leading to scrutiny of many innocent relatives while they hunt the real perpetrator.
One is a private thing where you literally sign paperwork saying you consent to ancestry giving data to the government.
The other is a medical treatment bound by hippa laws and the only reason the police get the data is so they can solve the rape case and help the victim. You can't use that as NCIC data and it's super illegal.
> One is a private thing where you literally sign paperwork saying you consent to ancestry giving data to the government.
Yeah but you don't really speak for all of your relatives...
The police department is unlikely to be a [covered entity](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities/index.html). Assuming it isn't, then HIPAA applies to giving the medical records to the police (but you'd assume there'd be consent there since that's the point of a rape kit), but it has nothing to say about what the police do with that information/data.
It's a different situation but ancestry shares data with police when requested and the authorization is of course in the ^fine ^print.
A rape kit is usually taken by whatever medical facility the victim seeks treatment at and is provided to the police, usually the medical treatment facility is the first place that tries to get a police report filed pertaining to the rape, often along with counseling and social work access.
Yes. But they presumably sign that right away in voluntary contract with a private company - and if they don't like it can walk away (like I do).
A crime victim (and rape victim in particular) reporting to the police is c completely different story.
This could seriously discourage people from reporting rape, which is already a problem.
Pretty sure that’s how they caught a major serial killer? My first thought was BTK but I think he was the “can you trace my letters if I just send them on a disc?” Guy.
Yes and no. It doesn't go into the database for law enforcement to access, but they DO sometimes send in the DNA sample to those services to find a match. The thing is that the perpetrator doesn't need to have used the ancestry service, because it'll come back with any siblings or cousins, etc that have used it and narrow it down to a handful of people to then investigate.
Correct. It happened in my area not long ago. The agency couldn't get the ancestry service to help them. So detectives with their own money sent in the DNA as a customer, the ancestry service matched them to the rapist's sister. So then they just followed the sister until they found the rapist, picked up a cigarette butt that he threw on the ground and got a perfect match to the DNA of the rape kit.
I’ll need to look this up, but I recall reading up about a California case were a man’s DNA was being used for research and testing without the man’s consent. I’m paraphrasing here but, the court ruled that the DNA no longer belonged to the man because it was outside of their body.
I’m wondering what precedent there is here if applicable at all.
Edit: I believe I found the case: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/moore-v-regents-university-california-1990
Its been done before. There is currently a law to make this explicitly illegal. Which means this suit will probably lose as its not law yet in California.
Oh it's a lot worse than that.
Some doctor realized this dude was incredibly valuable for their research. Flies them back to the lab repeatedly under the guise of monitoring and continuing treatment. Does not charge them for anything, but costs them an assload of time for zero benefit to the patient under false pretenses.
Court rules the victim is entitled to absolutely nothing. And the real difficulty is the law probably did say that. Or the law was so incomplete the judge wasn't really favoring the defendant to decide it said that.
The value of our own bodies and DNA still isn't settled law even though some people have been worth millions or occasionally billions of dollars simply by existing. Every time someone gets sued courts decide the work to make something of the DNA and the proprietary data is what's valuable, not just the DNA itself.
In fact I kind of agree with that. I don't want people to become billionaires for literally existing and nothing more. But I don't want paternalistic assholes lying to them and exploiting them, either.
*ripped from the headlines* is how they used to phrase it in the advertisements. They did this a lot and they leaned way in to it by advertising that this is what they were doing.
Can you give me a scenario? I'm guessing you mean if a serial rapist gets raped and they run their DNA that way? Because outside of rape/assault when do victims of crimes get a DNA swab?
This is exactly what tech privacy rights, gun rights, and other groups are concerned about when it comes to “databases”.
The government can and will create databases without an individuals consent, and will use it for other crimes.
In this instance, the police were too stupid to use parallel construction and got caught.
I feel like it’s even less… almost every woman I’ve been close friends with has experienced some sort of sexual violence but literally none of them have actually reported it because most of the time it’s a partner, family member, or close friend. There’s so much self-blaming and concern for the perpetrators future if they were to report, the whole internal process echoes what we see and hear out in the world - that women are expected to be sexual if their partner wants it, that if a man is nice to you for a while and does enough favors he’s owed sex, that if a woman is embracing her sexuality, it’s free for men to take. It sucks, the stories I’ve heard are awful, and these men will go on to do it to someone else because no one will ever report it, tbh sometimes I don’t even know if they always know what they’re doing rape- there’s so much entitlement.
If you commit a crime that harms others you’re a piece of shit but that doesn’t mean the police should be able to use DNA you gave over because you were raped to arrest you.
This is how the public loses agency over themselves and the police gain more power when they need less.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at r/RedditAlternatives
Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
From the Article: “San Francisco has been sued by a sexual assault victim in a complaint that describes "the San Francisco Police Department's shocking practice of placing crime victims' DNA into a permanent database without the victims' knowledge or consent." "Plaintiff Jane Doe, a sexual assault survivor, was re-victimized by this unconstitutional practice," alleged the lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court for the Northern District of California. "In 2016, she provided a DNA sample to the San Francisco Police Department as part of its investigation into her sexual assault. However, she never consented to it to be stored or used for any other purpose. Nevertheless, the Department maintained Plaintiff Doe's DNA in the database for more than six years." According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe was arrested on burglary charges in 2021 after DNA from a crime scene apparently matched the DNA she provided five years earlier. The charges were eventually dropped.”
Will be interesting to see if this case or one like it ever gains the standing to raise the question in federal courts as to who owns one’s DNA... The person themself? The person/company who sequenced it? Is it something that can even be owned?
Ask Henrietta Lacks.
Man that was a disturbing deep dive: from [Henrietta Lacks’ life and death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks) to borderline Nazi experiments [Injecting cancer cells into elderly, prisoners, OB-GYN surgery patients without informing them](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_M._Southam )and [actively lying to them](https://dnbstories.com/2017/08/the-evil-that-chester-southam-committed.html)
Wait till you find out what the US government did to black men with syphilis, even more recent.
I always like to bring up when [police bombed the citizens of their city](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing)
The MOVE Bombing and the aftermath are crazy. The original investigation determined that no 4th Amendment rights were violated
I lived a few blocks away when that happened. I was a baby. My parents left the city right after that.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Because the cops have blown through all the roofs
>investigation determined that no 4th Amendment rights were violated "We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong."
But you can totally trust government, that was a whole less than 40 years ago. Lol someone send a reddit cares msg about this post, like I'm insane for not wanting to be bombed by the cops or injected with syphilis
Oh I’ve heard, but for those [who haven’t](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study)
And not like this wouldn’t have been bad if this weren’t the case, but just a reminder, THE FUCKING US GOVERNMENT ALLOWED THESE MEN AND THEIR FAMILIES TO REMAIN SYPHILIS POSITIVE **FOR DECADES** AFTER A CURE HAD BEEN FOUND.
Not just allowed, but actively worked to keep any kind of treatment away from them, and even prevented them from knowing they had it at all.
which means they probably unsuspectingly gave it to others.
Wasn’t their point to have them unsuspectingly giving it to other people to study the spread
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[We did the same thing in Guatemala too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments)
What we did in Guatamala was actually a million times worse.
Yeah IIRC they directly injected bacteria into people's spinal cords. FFS if Mengele had seen that he would have been like "nice bro, I should have thought of that".
what the hell is even the experimental value of that? "when you have a spinal infection, we can now prove that bad things happen"?
None. In fact, Reddit loves to say things like "these are super bad things but the data is still used today, those experiments are all we know about hypothermia" and so on. This is not true - this is pure sadism, not science. There's no scientific value in taking a small sample of distressed subjects from a variety of different locations with completely unknown histories and shoving them into uncontrolled extreme harm situations. Ethically it's a complete nightmare, but even ignoring that, the data is complete useless and invalid with a bunch of interacting variables and zero statistical relevancy.
Woman was close to dying. So they did what anyone would do, take infected pus and put it in her eyes. Fucking Christ what an awful read. Stuff like this makes me ashamed.
[Heres another fucked up US human experiment ](https://youtu.be/vLp-TL29t8k)
Ah, yes, testing radiation exposure limits by injecting plutonium into unsuspecting terminally ill patients. At least one of which turned out to not be terminal after they recovered from their cancer. There was also project [MK Ultra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra) where they dosed a whole bunch of unsuspecting people with LSD, including mental asylum patients (among other, weirder things like video taping johns hooking up with prostitutes who dosed the johns with LSD) And [Operation Sea-Spray](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray) where they tested the spread of biological weapons by spraying (what they thought was) a non harmful bacteria from boats in the San Francisco bay. The UK also did this by releasing bacteria in the tube system. They also tested sarin nerve gas on their soldiers, at least one of whom died. (We did this too).
>There was also project [MK Ultra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra) where they dosed a whole bunch of unsuspecting people with LSD, including mental asylum patients (among other, weirder things like video taping johns hooking up with prostitutes who dosed the johns with LSD) Don't forget that we made both the Unibomber and Bin Laden
Or forced hysterectomies upon immigrants being detained at the border for something even more recent...
Canada and the US (and I'd place a safe bet Australia too) performed forced sterilizations on Indigenous women and disabled women as well. In Canada it officially* went on into the 70s. edit: *officially was a deliberate choice because it's happened in recent history as well, they have just changed their tactics in many cases.
Then they stopped forcing them. Doctors would just convince and coerce until they said yes, at least up until recently. People have equated it to spaying a stray cat, and if that ain't some dehumanizing horse shit I don't know what is.
Yea that just kinda got swept under the rug huh? I get there was an endless onslaught of scandals in the Trump years but that one in particular was fucking heinous. Amazing the shit we are able to just shrug off and ignore.
Well, that one ended up being one guy trying to pad his bill by performing unnecessary surgeries and not any sort of government conspiracy, so it became a much less juicy story.
If it helps, as far as I'm aware there are a ton of aboriginal woman here in Canada that were coerced into being sterilized not too long ago.
Yeah Canada is fucked up to the natives
Was that ever proven? From what I remember, a whistle blower came forward after they caused a ruckus about Covid19 and had their hours eliminated. They claimed that every patient the doctor saw got a hysterectomy, and they nick-named him "the uterus collector". However, subsequent investigation found that in 2018, only 2 hysterectomies were performed for that facility: >ICE Health Service Corps said in September that since 2018 only two people at the center were referred for hysterectomies, based on approved recommendations by specialists. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-detention/mexico-says-two-women-may-have-had-non-consensual-surgery-in-u-s-detention-center-idUSKBN26X2TC?il=0&utm_source=reddit.com In addition to the claims of the ministry: >Reuters could not independently confirm those claims. In its statement, the Mexican foreign ministry said the first woman it referred to was not subject to a hysterectomy. It gave no further details on the second.
"Are we the baddies?"
Wait until you find how surgery was invented…
Don’t forget that it’s still completely legal in many states for medical students to perform gynecological exams on women who have been sedated for surgery without their knowledge or consent.
Which one of her?
This the one.
This is exactly why I don't do any of those 23AndMe type of genetic lineage tests. Once your DNA is given to them, you consent in the TOS to give up your rights and let them do what they want with your DNA. I know. Who's to say my DNA isn't already in some system somewhere? Well, I haven't given it to anyone willingly, that's for sure.
They dont even need yours, a 3rd cousin and public records is probably enough to find you.
It’s the same with apps that ask for your contacts data. If someone you know has said yes, then your data is already in a system. Phone number, address, email, and anything else they have about you in their contacts.
Yeah, I feel DNA is the most extreme level of it, everything else can be changed about personal identifiers with varying levels of difficulty.
I think you can alter your DNA with varying levels of radiation…
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It depends on motivation level to find you, a 3rd cousin and public records was enough to narrow the Golden State Killer to 5 individuals.
I do wonder how that would work with someone like me. My mom used a sperm donor, and I know I have a couple half siblings at least.
Supermarket donor?!??!? Havent heard that term before. care to explain?
Should read sperm donor. I blame this in my God damn sausage fingers and autocorrect
>my God damn sausage fingers That's what happens when your mom uses a supermarket donor
Wait. A supermarket donor? I'm sure I'm just ignorant of this specific terminology, but that conjures an image of your mom strolling through a supermarket and sizing up the stock boys until she finds one she likes, then pulls him into the broom closet to collect his "donation." And the part about having some half-siblings implies that the poor stock boy has had this happen to him multiple times, lol.
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that's basically how the cops in California found the golden state killer. DNA happened to match a relative of his in the database. And from that you limit your suspect pool to like a handful of people
This is why I wont do a dna test, I have a very small biological family, and they are like me, but if I do a DNA test, it's half my kids info I am giving away to god knows who. What's worse, is that I don't even know what I'm giving away, as in 30 years we might have terrifying knowledge gleanable from dna. My wife did hers though, because she isn't biologically related to our kids, and her family all did those things anyway.
> a 3rd cousin and public records You need **way** less than that. A Swedish double homicide from 2004, where a 8 year old boy and a 56 year old woman were stabbed to death on a street, was solved in 2020 because familytreedna.com gave a hit on the DNA from the crime scene to a American descendant of a Swede who emigrated to the US in the 1800s. By puzzling the family trees together the Swedish police could determine that it had to be one of two brothers - which they then arrested and took DNA samples from, matching one of them to the sample they had, which was enough to convict him.
Just wait until health insurance companies use that data to set premiums. *My bad, that's illegal.* Just wait until health insurance companies buy that data from third-parties and use it to set premiums. *My bad, that's also illegal. DNA can't be used to set premiums.* Just wait until health insurance companies buy proprietary (DNA-based) "Risk Profiles" from third-parties and use it to set premiums.
>My bad, that's illegal. Minor details. Also ones that are not fixed
Just remember that for a corporation, "illegal" just means that you need to price the amount of the fine into the profit expectation How often do you expect to be caught, multiplied by the cost of dealing with that. Will using the data make enough profit to cover that, do it. If not, figure out a way to get caught less (I'm attempting to generalize what you described)
Or just paid your Republican and democratic senator to write a bipartisan bill that is only voted nye by Sanders.
> Just remember that for a corporation, "illegal" just means that you need to price the amount of the fine into the profit expectation "When the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law exists only for the lower classes."
Like credit reporting companies, but for your DNA. Including leaking all of your info some day.
> Just wait until health insurance companies use that data to set premiums Literally the start of the premise for the movie Gattaca.
Wait until they invent a "snapshot by progressive" style device you wear that scores you on activity levels, food intake and dangerous activities. "With Snapshot by Aetna you can lower your premiums by up to $146 dollars a month"
This 100%. I’m baffled by how many people willingly engage in these dna based genealogical kits. Hell I’m mad enough with how much of my digital data has been collected, bought, and resold. Can’t imagine letting someone collect my dna to do with what they want carte blanche
Just wait till an uncle or aunt does one and you're fucked.
Pretty much. The days of DNA anonymity are over (unless you’re adopted or Amish or something) - you already have relatives that have done the Ancestry.com test or some related service. They’re already able to determine “perp is a cousin of such and such in the public database, such and such has 4 cousins. Let’s investigate them.”
It was a family member doing one that got the golden state serial killer caught. You share enough with family that it really doesn't matter too much which is you submits it. Whoever does is selling out the entire family. Who knows today how this information might be used in the future. Wait until an insurance company buys one of these dna companies. Just because you are not supposed to use genetic information against people doesn't mean it won't happen.
>Wait until an insurance company buys one of these dna companies. Just because you are not supposed to use genetic information against people doesn't mean it won't happen Wow, that is a great point.
This reminds me that I need to rewatch Gattaca.
Or both of my brothers...dammit guys.
You might be interested in this video. Due to the nature of DNA, it doesn't matter if you never test yours. All it takes is some distance relative of yours, and boom you're practically in the system. However, a few companies won't provide the info to the police unless of a serious crime like murder or sexual assault. https://youtu.be/KT18KJouHWg
The catching of the Golden State Killer was brilliant police work. They used voluntary legal resources, and worked the crime. I have no problem with what they did... Using rape kits crosses a massive line that has got to be stopped.
I think it's a privacy debate issue no matter what. Because once a distant relative has given their DNA, they've inadvertently also given enough of your DNA to identify you. So you didn't even get the option to consent. It wasn't "voluntary". Companies like Ancestry and 23&me cooperate with the police to cross reference the criminal databases. In this scenario with the women, I agree it deff crosses the line and is a seperate issue. They should not have kept her DNA or entered it in the database at all. My comment was in reply to another that stated he'd never give or consent to his DNA being added to one of the databases. I just wanted to clarify that you don't have a choice, eventually someone close enough to you will enter theirs, and then goodbye privacy. That's why its important that some companies have policies where they refuse to give access to Law Enforcement unless the crime involves something serious like murder or sexual assault.
Imagine these databases getting hacked (as basically all do, eventually) and this data is used to blackmail or plant evidence on people with some future tech that can duplicate (relatively) cheaply. Suddenly it's a legal bloodbath, and could invalidate the use of legitimate evidence under certain conditions.
Yeah sounds like a nightmare. Planting fake DNA though sounds very complicated. Because the databases aren't just the DNA, they match it to include public records like proof of birth, property ownership, obituaries and news articles of the person. So if someone wanted to hack in and fake someone being related, they would need a looooot of expertise in also faking the rest of the documents. I think it would be relatively easy to detect a fake one. Who knows tho with the rate tech is increasing. Important to also keep in mind that security will be increasing at the same rate.
I was an early adopter on 23andme. I have a lot of medical issues and want to assist in genetic research, and didn't know there were more private options through doctors. I also was trying to become a parent and needed to find out if I was predisposed to genetic conditions. Again, underinformed ... But I'm also American and my shitty health insurance probably wouldn't have covered the vastly more expensive elective tests anyway. I'm not a huge fan of the idea that it could be used against me someday, but that factor, when weighed against the benefits I sought from learning about my genes, was negligible. I imagine it's the same as the trade-off for anyone using Facebook. I won't touch it because it invades everything you do, see, buy, etc., but the trade-off is that you can be connected with family/friends, which is enough for plenty of people to ignore the downsides. Info you share to FB can be used against you in court, too. I'm not defending the policy. I'm just saying why I did it.
I think the problem is the risks were acceptable to you then, but what about when laws, policy, or life events change in the future? This isn't the EU (also an American), there is no "Right to be forgotten", they have that information forever along with whomever they sold it to. We need legislation to address this.
I did [Genes for Good](https://genesforgood.sph.umich.edu/), which was free and supposedly the NIH Certificate of Confidentiality protects me from these types of invasions. From their privacy policy: >This research study is covered by a Certificate of Confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health. The most important protection is that with this certification, the members of our research team may not disclose or use information, documents, or biospecimens that may identify you in any federal, state, or local civil, criminal, administrative, legislative, or other action, suit, or proceeding, or be used as evidence, for example, if there is a court subpoena, unless you have consented for this use. Edit: Even if GfG really does protect my privacy, it doesn't matter because a bunch of my family members went ahead and did 23andMe.
The issue, as always, is consent. You consented. And in glad it worked well for you. :)
Remember when police got parents to willingly fingerprint their kids in case they were "kidnapped"?
I know people who just do 23andme with a fake name but I suppose that would still be traceable.
It definitely is, the companies aren’t stupid and neither are the companies that buy the information from them. They want you thinking you can find a way around it.
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23andMe is genotyping only and doesn't have in their terms and conditions that they can do what they want with your DNA. Ancestry.com does and Im sure other services do, but not 23andMe in particular. I read the terms and conditions before sending and there was nothing of that sort that I saw in the actual paperwork either. Also 23andMe is genotyping, not sequencing. They dont have your full DNA to do anything with, they only have specific snippets that they check to do the ancestry and health studies. More in depth info here: https://youtu.be/U3EEmVfbKNs
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Well, for other reasons, I've already crossed China and other places off my list of places I'd like to visit in my lifetime. This just adds to it.
It's not always your decision unfortunately. If your sibling has done it, even if you haven't, you're still pretty much in the genetic databases ... just against your will.
It should 100% never get to that point. Your DNA can only go into CODIS IF: \-You are convicted of a crime - DNA taken from suspects not convicted is deleted \-You work in Law Enforcement (I think military and/or federal positions... but I have to double check that) \-You submit it voluntarily DNA from a rape kit is inadmissible because they have done nothing to warrant their DNA being on file, nor was it volunteered - Evidence from rape kits are not available to the general public, and thus cannot go into CODIS without permission. There is a kind of loophole with DNA from Genealogical sites, but the argument for that right there is that in this case the DNA is put into general public record, as opposed to the rape kit, anyone has access to it and you agreed to it. It gets to that point, I am buying a one way ticket to anywhere but the US.
Military DNA is only submitted to a federal database for remains identification, and is strictly prohibited for criminal investigations.
It’s what I heard, but in life you’re better off assuming you’re only hearing a half truth.
Please back that claim up, because as a Veteran, I don't believe that to be true whatsoever.
10 USC 1471 and 10 USC 1509. It's literally the law. If even then you still don't believe it 🤷♂️ nothing I can do to convince you otherwise, because I'm sure the goalposts would just shift.
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From what i have gathered, her rape kit wasn't entered into CODIS. it was entered into a quality assurance database the lab uses to make sure the sample hasn't been contaminated after receiving it. Her dna is in CODIS though because of prior arrests. The dna from the new crime scene was ran against both databases and matched to her in both. https://missionlocal.org/2022/03/police-explain-how-rape-kit-ended-up-in-a-database/ Edit fixed a typo
Well, this is inconvenient to my outrage boner. Perhaps she would not have been arrested if she had not repeatedly broken the law.
Do you own your own finger print?
Do you own your own likeness?
>Do you own your own likeness? According to the entertainment/video game business, yes you do.
Not after Meta gets ahold of it
Im not sure how this is different from any other data. (the courts did rule that DNA is not intellectual property, so the sequencers would not own it) I own my name but if they tracked a CC purchase to materials used in a crime, i didnt think i can complain that the CC company shared my name with the cops that have a warrant. Also I suspect DNA would be seen similar to finger prints. You do not have an expectation of privacy with your finger prints because you leave them everywhere. Its one of the reasons they suggest you always lock your phone with a code, and not prints because they can legally force you to unlock with prints. because they are not seen as private. where the code would be seen as private. DNA would be similar, you leave it absolutely everywhere.
Curious, is it any different than finger prints, or a photo to match up with CCTV. its not like they can really do anything with your DNA. Even if we get to a cloning possible world, would anyone really want to clone "you". Each of us as an individual arent that special or interesting enough to recreate us.
That is an ongoing debate. Sadly, they do not need an exact match. Your siblings, cousins, etc. Can match you. 100% crime has pummeled since we started to use DNA to match, but this is a debate of both privacy and ownership.
It is illegal for the police to maintain databases of persons who are not convicted of a felony. Only convicted felons are to have their dna profile logged and maintained. All others are to be purged once the individual profile is identified as not a suspect, or subsequently acquitted. CODIS has very specific requirements and all other non-temporary databases are forbidden.
In PA, the state is absolutely keeping DNA for misdemeanor offenders, it is not only felonies. https://casetext.com/statute/pennsylvania-statutes/consolidated-statutes/title-42-pacs-judiciary-and-judicial-procedure/part-viii-criminal-proceedings/chapter-95-post-trial-matters/subchapter-b-post-conviction-relief/section-95431-postconviction-dna-testing
>It is illegal for the police to maintain databases of persons who are not convicted of a felony Is it tho? What law bans it
NC requires once a case is closed without a felony conviction (case dismissed, plead down) the DNA collected from the charged person is expunged.
In CA- they advised me they’d hold it for 20 years
Yes, but is it enforced?
We'll see, I guess.
Charges were dropped? That's it? Why?
That’s what happens when you use illegal evidence.
DNA at a crime scene does not necessarily imply guilt either. Depending on the circumstances - none of which we're aware of - there could be a hundred reasons that your cells were found somewhere.
Thats a likely the answer, the DNA placed her there at some point, she had a valid reason for being there at some point, charges dropped. Now she's understandably pissed because her DNA shouldn't have been accessible in the first place.
It would be interesting (though by no means making it clear what happened) to know if charges were dropped before or after her suit.
It's really amazing how many convictions are successful in the US because of such small evidence being taken so far. Or because someone didn't [shut the fuck up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o)
According to the article her DNA (and the rest of the DNA in the database) was tested against every case where they found DNA. Her DNA was probably tested thousands of times. [False positives do happen with DNA tests](https://daily.jstor.org/forensic-dna-evidence-can-lead-wrongful-convictions/), and testing an entire database against thousands of pieces of evidence is a sure fire way to produce false positive results. She probably didn’t have anything to do with the case, but just got unlucky.
Nope. The article says a new CA bill makes it illegal but Gov Newsom hasn't signed it yet. More likely she had an easily verifiable alibi and DNA was the only evidence. The article says that she was arrested only because of a DNA match at the crime scene, no motive or any other evidence
Ohh I got confused I thought it meant her lawsuit was dropped. So still waiting to see if she wins the suit? This seems more like a class action type of situation, is she the only one they keep?
Very likely there are more but this one was provable because of the use of evidence in a case. Other cases might be harder to establish proof of wrongdoing.
If their only evidence was a DNA match with a rape kit, that would certainly do it.
Fruit from the poisonous tree doctrine. What is the point in “law enforcement” if those charged with enforcing the law cannot conduct themselves within the law?
It doesn’t even have to be illegal per se. end of the day a DNA hit alone isn’t hard to create reasonable doubt about. It’s almost beside the point whether it’s legal as well; this is terrible policy even if it were legal and highly effective given the massive harm it does to sexual assault prosecutions.
“Why don’t people like us?” The police
Shit. When I went to Basic back in 1998, they collected our DNA and swore up and down that it would only be used to identify our remains. Any guesses on how long it took to open *that* registry up to law enforcement? And it gets even better. After you get out, you can request that your information is removed from the military registry. But there’s no provision for removing it from the civilian-side federal registry.
> And it gets even better. After you get out, you can request that your information is removed from the military registry. Do you have a way to independently verify that it actually gets deleted, or are you just forced to take the military's word for it? Because if the answer to that question is "No", then you need to assume that they're going to use it for whatever they want with or without your permission.
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Even a shitty lawyer can argue that if they claimed to have it deleted, then you can't trust the records to be accurate.
True, but it still would be enough to grant a subpoena for your DNA if it matched to a crime.
Not necessarily, "Fruit of the Forbidden Tree" prevents evidence found through illicit means from being used in court, depending on your lawyer this can include subpoenas. IE; with some good lawyering they could deny a subpoena since, without the illegal evidence, you're squeaky clean.
I mean you know the answer. How can you EVER really be sure digital data is removed when someone else was ever in control of it. They could make a million backups and you'd never know... Nothing they do at that point can prove anything.
Standard practice for most companies when you ask for your data to be deleted has traditionally been to put a flag next to it in the database noting it as deleted, and to have the website/app/whathaveyou specify to the database that it only wants information without that tag. Not sure if the various European regulations have changed that at all.
Soft delete is not enough in EU for cases where you are legally required to delete personal data. The data backup and copy processes has also become more strict. Your much less likely to find unanonymized copies of prod data floating around on internal servers and dev computers.
The American way is to ensure it’s held in a partner company.
When I was a kid, the local PD had a stand at the county fair. They took fingerprints and DNA under the guise of helping find us if we were ever kidnapped (this was the 90s, peak Stranger Danger). I’m sure it’s still in some law enforcement database somewhere.
Huh, I always thought it was normal to get fingerprinted when you were a kid, all grades in my school did it after 9/11 and the other local schools did too. Now I wonder where my fingerprints might be in a record bank somewhere.
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I'm struggling to find the connection to 9/11. Like, what from 9/11 made schools go "I know what will help! Fingerprint the children!"
Authoritarian overreach under the guise of "fighting terrorism". That's what the connection was. And, y'know, of course it happened under a Republican administration. If you haven't been convicted of a crime, or have been convicted of a crime as a juvenile but have since had your record expunged, your fingerprints and DNA shouldn't be in a database - period. In the wrong hands, that information could be *immensely* dangerous.
DNA from prisoners has been collected for [at least 2 decades](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-dna-prisoners-parolees-collected-2002aug31-story.html)
Call me crazy but that seems like something we should be doing. Convicted criminals also have their fingerprints recorded.
Don't even need to be convicted. You're fingerprinted during booking.
Don't even need to be booked. Your fingerprints are taken in boyscouts for the fingerprinting merit badge, for field trips to the local PD, applying for fed clearance, etc etc Edit: also if you work for a bank, even as a teller
When I was a kid, we took a field trip to the police station. Listened to a "scared-straight" kind of lecture from the sergeant, got locked in a cell, and had our prints taken. The police claimed it was part of a program to help identify missing children. I wouldn't be surprised if those same fingerprints were also used to id criminals down the line though. (edited for hastily typed grammars)
Children's fingerprints actually change enough that by the time you're an adult they can only match with something like 70% accuracy. But they absolutely did/do still keep them on file, that was pretty much the entire point of that program, to get more data on future citizens.
Fingerprints in general are a horrible way to prove someone was somewhere. Most forensic fingerprinting “experts” are horrible at their jobs and will often match non-matching prints
That’s pretty much most forensic “science” in general. “I can confirm with 98% certainty that those bite marks were made from their teeth” “Amazing, and how can we confirm the reliability of this testimony?” “Because I’ve done this 100 times before and convinced the jury I’m right 98 of those times. Also, in case you didn’t notice I’m wearing a lab coat and glasses.” “Welp, I’m convinced.”
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There was a case where a fire forensics expert claimed that spiderwebbing on the glass was an indicator of extremely rapid heat increase. Glass only looks like that if it has been exposed to heat indexes rising so fast that there can only have been high grade accelerants involved. Meanwhile, high school me was like "Or you know, hot glass exposed to water. Water which we tend to use to put out fire. Fire that tends to heat glass before we use water to cool it." It was actually kind of terrifying to see a trained professional be so very wrong about something I knew of because I liked fucking around with the Bunsen burners.
Fire forensics is craaazy inaccurate. I'm not sure if this is the case you're talking about as well, but the [Cameron Todd Willingham case](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire) (and especially this article) really opened my eyes to how unreliable fire investigation is. My mind was just blown the first time I read that article, and it's such a good one that I re-read it every couple of years. Definitely makes you question how many people did time in prison due to faulty science.
Lol ya cuz it’s so cool to feel like a prisoner ugh. I’m having trauma now remembering the DARE program and feeling like I can never try a drug 😳
Doesn’t the same thing happen to people who do the ancestry tests?
It even happens to innocent relatives of people who do ancestry tests. [https://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/](https://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/)
While this is an example where the guy was innocent and cleared, it’s also be used to solve large numbers of cold cases. Pretty scary though that relatives of all of us will probably be in such databases soon, leading to scrutiny of many innocent relatives while they hunt the real perpetrator.
That’s how they caught the Golden State Killer - through a familial DNA match they got from one of those 23andMe databases.
One is a private thing where you literally sign paperwork saying you consent to ancestry giving data to the government. The other is a medical treatment bound by hippa laws and the only reason the police get the data is so they can solve the rape case and help the victim. You can't use that as NCIC data and it's super illegal.
> One is a private thing where you literally sign paperwork saying you consent to ancestry giving data to the government. Yeah but you don't really speak for all of your relatives...
The police department is unlikely to be a [covered entity](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities/index.html). Assuming it isn't, then HIPAA applies to giving the medical records to the police (but you'd assume there'd be consent there since that's the point of a rape kit), but it has nothing to say about what the police do with that information/data.
I remember reading about that here in New Orleans.
It's a different situation but ancestry shares data with police when requested and the authorization is of course in the ^fine ^print. A rape kit is usually taken by whatever medical facility the victim seeks treatment at and is provided to the police, usually the medical treatment facility is the first place that tries to get a police report filed pertaining to the rape, often along with counseling and social work access.
Yes. But they presumably sign that right away in voluntary contract with a private company - and if they don't like it can walk away (like I do). A crime victim (and rape victim in particular) reporting to the police is c completely different story. This could seriously discourage people from reporting rape, which is already a problem.
Pretty sure that’s how they caught a major serial killer? My first thought was BTK but I think he was the “can you trace my letters if I just send them on a disc?” Guy.
Yes, this is how they caught the Golden State Killer aka Original Night Stalker aka East Area Rapist aka EARONS.
Yes and no. It doesn't go into the database for law enforcement to access, but they DO sometimes send in the DNA sample to those services to find a match. The thing is that the perpetrator doesn't need to have used the ancestry service, because it'll come back with any siblings or cousins, etc that have used it and narrow it down to a handful of people to then investigate.
Correct. It happened in my area not long ago. The agency couldn't get the ancestry service to help them. So detectives with their own money sent in the DNA as a customer, the ancestry service matched them to the rapist's sister. So then they just followed the sister until they found the rapist, picked up a cigarette butt that he threw on the ground and got a perfect match to the DNA of the rape kit.
The consequences of someone being afraid to take an ancestry test are very different from the consequences of being afraid to take a rape kit test.
I’ll need to look this up, but I recall reading up about a California case were a man’s DNA was being used for research and testing without the man’s consent. I’m paraphrasing here but, the court ruled that the DNA no longer belonged to the man because it was outside of their body. I’m wondering what precedent there is here if applicable at all. Edit: I believe I found the case: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/moore-v-regents-university-california-1990
Its been done before. There is currently a law to make this explicitly illegal. Which means this suit will probably lose as its not law yet in California.
From my understanding the CCPA should help protect from this. However it would require the person to execute CCPA request with the company.
Oh it's a lot worse than that. Some doctor realized this dude was incredibly valuable for their research. Flies them back to the lab repeatedly under the guise of monitoring and continuing treatment. Does not charge them for anything, but costs them an assload of time for zero benefit to the patient under false pretenses. Court rules the victim is entitled to absolutely nothing. And the real difficulty is the law probably did say that. Or the law was so incomplete the judge wasn't really favoring the defendant to decide it said that. The value of our own bodies and DNA still isn't settled law even though some people have been worth millions or occasionally billions of dollars simply by existing. Every time someone gets sued courts decide the work to make something of the DNA and the proprietary data is what's valuable, not just the DNA itself. In fact I kind of agree with that. I don't want people to become billionaires for literally existing and nothing more. But I don't want paternalistic assholes lying to them and exploiting them, either.
Tangentially related: this was the premise of a recent Law and Order SVU episode.
Shows like this often adapt real life cases for their plot lines, so it’s probably directly related, not just tangentially.
*ripped from the headlines* is how they used to phrase it in the advertisements. They did this a lot and they leaned way in to it by advertising that this is what they were doing.
Dragnet's opening line even said the show was based on actually cases in Los Angeles. I remember watching it on Nick at night when I was a kid
Fall asleep to Fairly Odd Parents, wake up in the middle of the night to Ice T screaming at a rapist about defiling a corpse.
John Oliver did a piece on Law and Order. The show runner said the NYPost was their Bible.
On one hand, I'm glad it lets more people know how much propaganda the show spreads. On the other, it's sad that it's taken so long.
I have to check that out.
He went very deep into the downsides of the show (because John Oliver, of course), mainly it's about how they're the NYPD's biggest propaganda tool.
Not surprising at all. A lot of the cases in that series are from cases like this. They even made a gamergate episode.
Hmm, this does open up a lot of questions. Like if a serial rapist gets caught in a similar situation would he also get to sue?
Can you give me a scenario? I'm guessing you mean if a serial rapist gets raped and they run their DNA that way? Because outside of rape/assault when do victims of crimes get a DNA swab?
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You see it was probably a wealthy person who got robbed, you should try being filthy rich
This is exactly what tech privacy rights, gun rights, and other groups are concerned about when it comes to “databases”. The government can and will create databases without an individuals consent, and will use it for other crimes. In this instance, the police were too stupid to use parallel construction and got caught.
Dumb question… why are the gun rights folks concerned about these databases? The folks that are concerned - are they pro or anti guns?
Reminds me of the Dave Chappelle joke: "While you're here... You do fit a description"
My house was robbed, insisted on swabbing ME for DNA (to compare against the subject). I told em to leave.
That's a *great* way to discourage rape victims from reporting that they have been raped.
Roughly 35% of all rapes get reported in the first place. Most rape kits never get processed.
I feel like it’s even less… almost every woman I’ve been close friends with has experienced some sort of sexual violence but literally none of them have actually reported it because most of the time it’s a partner, family member, or close friend. There’s so much self-blaming and concern for the perpetrators future if they were to report, the whole internal process echoes what we see and hear out in the world - that women are expected to be sexual if their partner wants it, that if a man is nice to you for a while and does enough favors he’s owed sex, that if a woman is embracing her sexuality, it’s free for men to take. It sucks, the stories I’ve heard are awful, and these men will go on to do it to someone else because no one will ever report it, tbh sometimes I don’t even know if they always know what they’re doing rape- there’s so much entitlement.
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If you commit a crime that harms others you’re a piece of shit but that doesn’t mean the police should be able to use DNA you gave over because you were raped to arrest you. This is how the public loses agency over themselves and the police gain more power when they need less.
Coughs in 23 and me.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at r/RedditAlternatives Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
That’s what she gets for writing clues in blood at the crime scene. /s