That there slippery slope. They'll let them use your family's data too in case you're a criminal https://www.slashgear.com/family-tree-dna-opens-its-genealogy-database-to-fbi-02564465/ Family Tree DNA opens its genealogy database to FBI The FBI does not have open access to freely look through the genetic profiles in Family Tree’s library, like they can with public databases. Instead, the private company will allow them to create accounts like any other user, which means they are limited to submitting a DNA profile in order to search for a match. The company’s terms of service were updated in December, giving the FBI permission to use the database for cases involving “violent crime,” like murder or sexual assault, to either identify suspects or the remains of victims.
This has been going on for several years now actually. There's dozens of cold cases nationwide that have recently been solved, the perp now behind bars. All the major consumer DNA players are participating. I'm all for it if they are using it to go after murders and rapists, which at the present they are. Imagine you had a daughter that was murdered 30 years ago and the case was never solved. How horrific would that be. I couldn't imagine. They are catching a lot of these fucks now using this, and thats a great thing imo. I do agree however... it is a slippery slope.... because like anything else, the power it now yields will most assuredly make its way into the prosecution of far lesser crimes. It is what it is I guess, cause its not going to change. Folks think things are Orwellian now.... pff.... we are in the infancy. This train is not stopping.
This is the first case I've heard of the cops using these companies through a service paid for something else. I'm sure they run the databases of perp DNA which seems to be mandatory in many states now. It's not a huge jump from "let's offer it to the cops", to "let's sell the data to other companies." The most disturbing aspect is using family members data to find perps.
GEDmatch is another service giving submitted DNA information to police.... it was used to catch the Golden State Killer. The ingenious and ‘dystopian’ DNA technique police used to hunt the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...as-suspect-police-say/?utm_term=.5bfe4353d72b Despite many law enforcement people driving it's use --- "Familial DNA searches, in fact, had an 83 percent failure rate in a 2014 British study, Wired wrote. This is part of the reason that many warn against the practice, even as law enforcement agencies master its uses." “The technique is arousing fierce objections from privacy advocates, who maintain that it turns family members into genetic informants without their knowledge or consent,” Ellen Nakashima wrote in The Washington Post in 2008, long before the popularity of genealogy sites exploded. Since then, Wired reported, Maryland and the District of Columbia have banned familial DNA searches, while the method is regulated in several other states, including California, where police used it to track down the Golden State Killer suspect. “You allow that low-quality potential evidence to start being searched in these unregulated databases,” Stephen Mercer, a former public defender who helped pass the ban on familial search in Maryland, told The Post. “You’re casting a wide net of suspicion over many, many people.”
Exactly. I can see this going to insurance companies to raise the cost of insurance based on profile.
"The San Francisco police crime lab has been entering sexual assault victims’ DNA profiles in a database used to identify suspects in crimes, District Attorney Chesa Boudin said Monday, an allegation that raises legal and ethical questions regarding the privacy rights of victims. Boudin said his office was made aware of the purported practice last week, after a woman’s DNA collected years ago as part of a rape exam was used to link her to a recent property crime."