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Twist on DNA Privacy
ConfusedVorlon writes "The BBC is reporting the conviction of a man for the murder of a prostitute 15 years ago. The interesting twist is that his DNA was not on record - 'But it partly match[ed] that of a youth's who was known to the police - but who had not been born at the time of the murder. The teenager, it turned out, was a close relative of [the murderor].' There has been concern in the past at the idea of keeping DNA of those interviewed but not charged with crimes. I haven't previously heard of the privacy implications of being related to a criminal/suspect. If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear?"
...it all goes right, this is a GOOD thing :)
I like my privacy as much as the next person, I like seeing evil bastards locked up even more though.
There are lots of serious problems with this technology and the problems have already started. If you are on jury duty and the police say "This man is definately the murderer because his DNA matches", would you find him guilty? I think most people would. The problem is that we are dealing with statistics and they are often wrong. As the DNA database gets larger the risk of 2 identical DNA fingerprints gets greater. Add that to the fact that they only match a limited number of markers making the risk of a mistake greater.
As I said, the problems have already Started...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I predict that this will become standard procedure. Say a murderer leaves a DNA trace, but this matches nothing on record. It will be possible to match this DNA against known samples to come up with a fairly accurate picture of the criminal's ethnic origins, facial features, blood type, and much more.
Quite probably police will be able to search for criminals by family or community, much more precise than saying "an asian male did this", more like "we're looking for a young chinese from Guandong province who has long ears and eyes of this and that shape".
Eventually, a single DNA sample will allow scientists to create a detailed facial reconstruction, the only problem for identification being the age of the perp. And that can be pinpointed too, since DNA frays at the edges over time, and this fraying can be measured.
DNA profiling is probably the single most important anti-crime tool of the future. It will make it almost impossible to escape punishment for one's acts.
The big question will be (and it is almost too late to answer this) whether society is willing to pay the price for this security. I suspect the answer is "YES" for most people except theoretical libertarians. I think most people are wrong on this.
The tentacles of the state reach too far already, and that crime is not solvable by a better police system, but by better social structures. I was burglared last month, robbed of about $30,000. The thieves left a cigarette stub on the carpet. Yet would it really be a good thing to apprehend them and put them into prison?
It's an easy answer but prison is like crime college. Lock up a small thief and release a hardened criminal.
Conclusion: the current trend towards giving the state more power, aided by the sword of science, will not result in more security. Technological solutions are not a replacement for social policies that attack the causes of crime, by providing youths with alternative careers, and by dismantling the structures of power that nuture organized crime.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Oh, right, I'm somehow supposed to want to give up my rights more because the crime was worse? I'm more worried about the goverment getting everyone's dna as a primary way of identifing them and then using that to track/identify/regulate them, or the goverment selling this information to companies who then copywrite sequences of DNA and then charge people to live. If there's substantial amount evidence, then this is really covered under the searches and siezurs part of our bill of rights. Get a court order, or shut the fuck up.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I don't know how it works in Wales, but in the USA innocent people plead guilty every day for any number of reasons including being tricked by the prosecution into believing that the case against them is strong that they will lose at trial and that pleading guilty will mitigrate the sentencing phase, or in order to protect someone else who may or may not be guilty either.
It does not take a conspiracy freak to see either of those options as possibilities in this case given the rather sketchy details presented in the article - particularly with the history the case has of the police getting a conviction against the wrong people to begin with. As a lowly security guard, the guy was probably only able to afford "poor man's justice" anyway.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear
Yes, because as we all know the criminal justice system is completely infallible, and never ever makes a mistake leading to the conviction of an innocent for a crime they did not commit. Honestly, any cop who says "If you're innocent you've got nothing to worry about" to a suspect should be taken out back and beaten.
If someone knows your DNA they can find out stuff about you that can lead to discrimination. Not so with fingerprints.
Somehow, the police managed to establish a connection between the nephew and his uncle based on the DNA sample. This could have been as simple as someone noticing that the uncle was mentioned in the original investigation (same surname), or as complex as some biological DNA jiggery pokery. Uncles and newphews have a common parent/grandparent respectively, so there will be a sizable chunk of identical genetic material in there (25%) to go on. In this specific case the suspect admitted guilt and justice eventually appears to have been done, but we need details on that missing step. It's all very well saying that the police would still have to prove the that someone identified in this way was guilty in court, but most jurors are going to hear the phrase "DNA match" and think "Guilty!" as their knee bounces off their chin.
On the whole, I have no privacy problems with this, it does seem like some brilliant police work from the forensics team. However, I am left wondering how this might have turned out if the uncle's DNA had been at the scene for a perfectly innocent reason that he could not justify, or if the DNA match was just a coincidence. The key is just how much additional investigative work was there to get from nephew to uncle?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
"If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear?"
I suppose that if you've done nothing wrong in your house, you don't mind if the law enforcement groups come in and take a look. If you've done nothing wrong, you don't need a lawyer. If you've done nothing wrong, you won't be arrested.
The list can go on. I think there needs to be caution before these types of statements are made. DNA profiling (as mentioned somewhere else in this replyset) is not far away...unless it is not allowed to happen by those of us the government is supposed to represent.
DNA is good, but privacy is paramount.
You can have my DNA when you pry it from my cold, dead cells.
To me this story wonderfully illustrates the fact that there is good utility in a powerful police/state. It still worries me though.
Nobody argues that it is a good thing that a murderer was caught.
Many would however object to compulsory collection of fingerprints from all citizens / immigrants / visitors etc. Again, there is no doubt that this would help to solve some crimes and result in some good things. Many of us worry about the prospect because we do not trust our police / state to use those powers only for good. This mostly comes from differring beliefs in what is acceptable (speeding / P2P / looking at photographs by a famous photographer whom some consider to be a pornographer / reading communist literature the list goes on)
We have convinced ourselves that it is OK to keep fingerprints for criminals - though perhaps less so for those never convicted of crimes.
With DNA, this case shows us that when you store the DNA of a criminal - you effectively store the DNA of a family. Is that OK?
the argument is not about stopping criminals. It is about how much power we will grant to that end. It is about whether you believe that power corrupts.
I don't trust my government. Hence my concern.
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If you feel the need to object to DNA privacy issues, bear in mind that three men were wrongly convicted of the murder
The wrongful conviction of these men cannot be assigned to anything but the insincerity of the police and prosecuters in seeking out the real perpetrator. If they had the dna evidence that they believed would lead to the murderer, how can they justify convicting men whose dna did not match that evidence.
A state collecting evidence on citizens before they commit a crime is a serious threat to freedom. You cannot assume that a just government will always be just. If the government were to decide that an individual were undesirable, or that a patsy was needed to cover for a crime committed by a law enforcement or intelligence officer, then the database would be an all too convenient rescource.
In addition, there is the current belief among some that all behavior is genetically determined. If you were to combine the existance of such a dtatabase with the acceptance of research such as this you then have millions of persons who are born "guilty" of a crime that they did not yet, and may never commit.
Read, L
But this isn't the worst abuse, SlashDot had a story a couple years ago, about how S.C. sold/gave its driver license database to a Mass. company to digitize the photos, and "verify the identity" of its citizens. It was pitched as, "you would not need to be concerned about verifying yourself to stores, banks, etc." as this database would verification for you. The S.C. citizens were supposed to be enthralled about the S.C. gov'ts ability to track their financial movements. Only after a large outcry, was the program suspended, but I don't know if the database was purged by the Mass. company, and the citizens' personal information, protected.
So it isn't paranoia, as some states have viewed your personal information, which you are required to give to get a license, as an exploitable resourse. It reminds me of the online web privacy story from Thursday, where online companies have changed their privacy policies rectroactively, and have then started selling your personal information. This also disregards the much worse effects of the "war-on-terror".
"This man is definately the murderer because his DNA matches", would you find him guilty? I think most people would.
OJ walked.
The problem is that we are dealing with statistics and they are often wrong.
Whereas of course, an emotional witness has 100% accuracy? I think DNA as evidence is great, not because it is completely impossible to get it wrong, but because it is so superior to the alternatives.
If it now turns out that incomplete DNA can give a false postive then this should be carefully studied. Next time they will no that the DNA shows that "it is either him or a close relative". THen you can start talking to close relatives and see if they have an alibi.
Tor
Listen. Men who are suspected of crimes may desire to have their DNA tested against the evidence to clear their name. No one would argue this point. However, as a common citizen you have no business collecting evidence on me. How many wrongfully convicted people would have not been convicted if we had wiretaps on every line?
But we don't do this. Because we don't treat citizens like criminals. Neither should we collect DNA for the same reason.
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For the same reason no one used linux in 1980, it didn't exist.
The ability to test for DNA has been with us for over a decade. Why haven't we been using it all of this time? Because prosecutors want to keep every conviction that they can stack up. Whether or not an innocent man is behind bars is less important than whether or not they followed all of the rules in the trial.
LK
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