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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?"
If you feel the need to object to DNA privacy issues, bear in mind that three men were wrongly convicted of the murder initially and cleared much later before a new investigation finally caught the real perpetrator.
You, out of the pool!
WARNING: Kazaa users. Make sure you vaccuum every last bit of hair, saliva, and skin slough from your keyboard. The RIAA has formed a new bioevidence division and are connecting DNA proven keyboard users with known fileswapping.
...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.
Its obvious from a couple or three replies already up that some of you are not reading the article first.
The dude was not convicted on the DNA evidence alone. In fact, there apparently was no trial. The DNA only lead to a suspect...who then CONFESSED AND PLEADED GUILTY.
I fail to see where there is a privacy implication here. All I see is good police work (which makes up for the initial very bad police work).
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Except that the guy pleaded guilty once arrested, so the DNA was not called in evidence.
But once they had arrested the guy, they had a sample of *his* DNA, which should be an exact match for the scene-of-crime DNA. The critical bit is the police working back through somebody else's DNA that they just happened to have on file.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
There are two ways of comparing DNA that are used. The first, more common method, is to look at something called Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP). The spaces between known regions that can be cut vary. Look at enough of these and you can statistically say with some confidence that its your person.
The second method, which isn't used as often last I saw, involves looking at the DNA sequences in regions which do vary. Perhaps well studied regions like those associated with organ rejection in transplantation.
Both methods are more reliable than the people carrying out the work. With RFLP, there is a certain amount of subjectivity involved in calling two sizes the same. With sequencing, contamination is easy.
I'm sure the procedures have improved since I last observed them. The weakest link in both procedures is the human factor.
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.
This reminds us of a problem with DNA testing: it can't distinguish identical twins or clones. Also, inbreeding might increase the odds for a false positive match, and there may be many other real-world factors we don't know about that increase the probability of a false positive beyond what common estimates would lead you to guess.
These problems are compounded by the widespread misapplication of statistical prodecures in the biomedical sciences (most of the FDA drug testing is based on outdated and basically faulty statistical procedures, and it's probably the same in the forensic sciences).
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.
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A recent case here in Canada had me a bit uncomfortable.
A young girl was murdered and police asked Men in the neighbourhood to volunteer DNA samples. About 20 men refused. 19 were innocent and refused for personal reasons. One of these men was eventually implicated in the crime when Police followed these 20 men and picked up "pop cans, et al" used by these men to obtain DNA samples.
This implies - You have no right to refuse to give a DNA sample because one will be taken secretly against your will anyhow.
What happens to these samples? Could I be implicated in a completely separate crime because my second cousin lived NEAR a murder victim who's and had his DNA "stolen" by police?
This can only get scarier without laws to protect us.
I am more worried about the fact that small amounts of DNA-strands can be left everywhere by yourself and brought to the crime-scene by accident or purpose.
I mean you might hug a chick that goes away and commits suicide and then all the sudden some of your hair is found on her coat.. alright that might not be that bad but imagine a devious mind bringing your dna and being careful not to spread his on the crime-scene. All the sudden you might be in the spotlights and police say they are 100% sure its your DNA.
Use of DNA and other technology is ok by me to tie a suspect to a scene but not find the suspect. neither is broad searches through a DNA-database (same as trying to find the suspect imho)
...some of you are not reading the article first.
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The system that the FBI uses to keep track of DNA is called CODIS - Convicted Offender DNA Identification System. It relies on DNA profiling, sometimes called DNA fingerprints.
There are areas in the genome that science currently believes do not contain any genetic information that is actually used. In this "junk" DNA, there are areas called STRs - Short Tandem Repeats. These are places where there is a short sequence of DNA (e.g., ACC) that is repeated n1...n2 times (where n1 and n2 usally range from single to low double-digits.) Since there is (normally) one copy of each gene from each parent, each person will get a section of some length from one parent, and a section of some length from the other parent (the lengths may be the same.)
Glossing over some of the details, and all of the lab work, this means that for each of the 13 loci recognized by the US forensic community (the Brits use a slightly different set) an individual will have 13 pairs of numbers. For each loci, each number has a different frequency, so it is possible to build up a likelihood (i.e., chance that the DNA came from a person other than the person in question.) These numbers get much, much larger than the number of people on the planet for full profiles.
Identical twins will have the same numbers. Children have one number from each of their parents. Siblings are likely to share numbers. Two unrelated people may have some numbers in common.
This is how paternity test are done. (The child will have one number at each loci in common with the father.)
This is how rapists are linked to victims. (Their profile matches exactly with DNA from semen, skin under fingernails, blood from the scene, etc.)
This is how people behind bars are cleared of crimes. (See above.)
This is how many of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks are being identified. (By matching DNA from victims' toothbrushes, razors, hairbrushes, dirty clothes, etc. to the DNA of the body parts found at the site; and also by kinship analysis.)
As far as I can tell, in the U.S., if you throw something away, the police don't need a search warrant to obtain it. They can go through your trash all they want.
It goes likewise for eavesdropping on conversations. There's something called "reasonable expectation of privacy". If I'm talking to someone on a crowded street, then the cops can record my conversation and use it as evidence because I wasn't taking steps that someone would reasonably take if they were trying to keep something secret (as in, secret from everybody and not just from the police).
This DNA thing strikes me as something similar. Just like if you throw a murder weapon with your fingerprints on it into your trash, I think you're "discarding" your DNA if you were to, say, have children. The parallel to "reasonable expectation of privacy" is that, if you were someone who really didn't want their DNA (or half of it) out there running around loose, then you would elect to not have kids.
So, if you have kids, then I think that the cops should, clearly, have a right to use the DNA of those kids (provided they're over the age of consent and provided that they volunteer their DNA) to catch you. What's a little more murky is whether the cops should be allowed to catch you based on DNA from any familial relative... including ones you have no control over the production of (like, your parents, cousins, etc.). Again, I think it would hinge upon whether you had kids. Going back to "reasonable expectation of privacy". If you have kids, then you aren't exercising what little control you have over the dissemination of your DNA... so it must not matter to you that much... so everything's fair game at that point.
Legal issues aside, I must say that this is one really cool thing about DNA. Everybody knows the obvious advantages that DNA has over fingerprints: you get usable evidence from smaller samples, from a wider variety of fluids, smudges, etc. What's less obvious is the idea of "proximity". Two people with similar fingerprints are not necessarily closely related, and two people who are closely related don't necessarily have similar prints. With DNA, that's not the case. With DNA, you're able to tell when you've got some DNA from someone closely related to some "target DNA". Even cooler, you can probably tell how many generations away they are.
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.
I have been falsely arrested twice. These two "false arrests" are on my record from my childhood. I'm now 29. Every 3 years I make "total information requests" from everyone from whom I can think of that collects information from me. (credit, mail, email, post office, clubs, memberships, utility, etc)
One interesting thing is my complete "litigation/arrest" history. Essentially my file that the FBI would "examine".
I find it unfair that my peeping tom arrest from 18 (false arrest) & my theft from Walmart at 22 (false arrest) are still even capable of being associated with me. Also, every traffic ticket I have ever gotten, every court case I have been involved in; are all on an easily accessed file. If I were ever accurately arrested for an associated offense, wouldn't I then have a pattern? Even though wiped from my record or not guilty?
For the peeping tom incident I was handcuffed, made to take a lie detector test (failed), and kept in custody for 4 hours from 11pm to 3am. It wasn't until my girlfriend came in and said she was with me and that I wasn't doing it, that I got off. It was all because the next door neighbor girl was jealous of my having a girlfriend.
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Guys and Girls there is a RealVideo clip in the web artical that explains in far more detail how the murderer was caught.
Facts:
Victim stabbed more than 50 times.
DNA samples from flat collected 12 years later, hidden under layers of paint on skirting board.
Rare detail in DNA Component "27" linked to youth, DNA collected after traffic offence.
Convicted murderer was youths uncle.
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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The biggest problem with DNA fingerprinting, is the contamination problems. Before a restriction endonuclease (DNA cutter) is added to cut up the highly repeated elements of DNA, PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is used to make many, many copies of the DNA. (2^20 to 2^30 iirc)
The big problem with this is, that a tiny contamination will cause deviances from what would be expected.
As most uni (college) biology students will tell you, it's really easy to contaminate what you're working with if you're not careful, when you're using PCR. As a crime scene is certainly not a lab, the potential for getting the wrong DNA is possible in some cases.
Although, I imagine that this is mitigated somewhat by obtaining DNA samples of the victim, and others who may have legitimately contaminated the scene.
There's a difference between showing that DNA at a scene matches a suspect, and showing that the DNA at the scene was there because of the criminal activity.
I'm not saying that DNA fingerprinting is not a legitimate technology, it's just like all technologies - not foolproof, and we should remember that, rather than treat it like a panacea.
(And for those people worried about insurance companies, etc, the police DNA database does not contain information about whether you are more likely to get any particular disease)
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A common question.
A good primer: How DNA Evidence Works
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
"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.
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