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Police Use DNA To Generate a Suspect's Face

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-the-generic-looking-ones-you've-gotta-watch dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times has a pair of articles about a technology now being used in police investigations: computer generation of a suspect's face from only their DNA. Law enforcement in South Carolina had no pictures or descriptions of a man who murdered a mother and her daughter, but they had some of his DNA. From this, a company named Parabon NanoLabs used a technique called DNA phenotyping to create a rough portrait of the suspect's facial features, which the police then shared with the public.

The accuracy of these portraits is still an area of hot debate — most of them look rather generic. The NY Times staff tested it with a couple of their employees, circulating the DNA-inspired portraits and seeing if people could guess who it was supposed to be. None of the ~50 employees were able to identify reporter John Markoff, and only about 10 were able to identify video journalist Catherine Spangler. But even though the accuracy for a person's entire face is low, techniques for specific attributes, like eye color, have improved greatly. Of course, the whole situation raises a slew of civil liberties questions: "What traits are off limits? Should the authorities be able to test whether a suspect has a medical condition or is prone to violence should such testing be possible?"

18 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Prone to violence? by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "What traits are off limits? Should the authorities be able to test whether a suspect...is prone to violence should such testing be possible?"

    Because it's hard to tell if someone who killed 2 people is violent....

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:Prone to violence? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The most murderous people sit behind podiums. The next most murderous sit in labs. Then you have those who quietly and with great discipline aim the weapon or prepare the poison.

      The least dangerous murderers are those who lost their shit in the heat of the moment. Which isn't to say they're not dangerous, but there are a lot of people who could reach this state of mind, given sufficient provocation. Perhaps most people?

    2. Re:Prone to violence? by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think the point is if they take a suspect's DNA and show that he's prone to violence, and use that as evidence he committed the crime, rather than taking DNA from a violent crime scene.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:Prone to violence? by beastofburdon · · Score: 2

      I would feel much safer in Hell's Kitchen at 1:00AM than in a tour of Congress.
      Most of the criminals in the ghetto are criminals out of desperation, in Congress they are evil at their very core.

  2. Suspect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The suspect is described as slim, 5' tall, and double-helical.

  3. That's great! by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When that technology will have evolved enough, it'll be able to show what you were supposed to be from your DNA, compared to what you actually are. How your body and face have changed due to your family, education, school, company etc... That technology will contribute to settle the debate "genetics vs environment".

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    1. Re:That's great! by flaming+error · · Score: 2

      "it'll be able to show what you were supposed to be "

      I shoulda been a gynecologist.

  4. GTA San Andreas by gl4ss · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure it's the lead character from GTA:SA.

    seriously, it's pretty friggin generic. the company does good money probably on it.

    how about.. along with ordering this from them.. order known faces+dna pairs and see if it's any good.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:GTA San Andreas by QuasiSteve · · Score: 2

      how about.. along with ordering this from them.. order known faces+dna pairs and see if it's any good.

      I know, I know... it's still unfashionable to RTFA. But I did it anyway, so you won't have to:
      They did exactly that in a related article linked from there:
      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02...

      At least a dozen people immediately responded that they could not guess because the images felt too generic. Among the 50 or so people who did venture guesses, none identified the man as Mr. Markoff, who is 65.

      When it came to the computerâ(TM)s DNA portrait of Ms. Spangler, 31, staffers had more luck. About 10 people correctly identified her.
      Although there was no close second, participants put forth the names of nearly 10 other women. About half of them were of European ancestry, half of Asian ancestry

      So no, it not 'any good'... other than a very generic facial build, skin color, hair color, and male/female. The article doesn't mention eye color, and the samples given aren't clear enough to know if they get that out - but as far as I know, that should be one of the easier things to get right.

      It's a glimpse of inevitable things to come, though.

  5. Parallel_construction by Sparrowhawk7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds more like a case of Parallel_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... to me. Its not like the technique is unknown to law enforcement. With all the additional pressure around Stingray (cell site simulator) use, I fully expect these types of techniques to proliferate.

  6. This is creepy! by Aethedor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is privacy so important? Because you don't know what creepy things governments will do with it in the future. All the condition under which you gave away some of your personal information might not apply in the future. And getting your information back at that time will very likely be no option.

    What if your face ends up with this new creepy technology. How can you even possibly defend your self against it? Some, for normal people, impossible to comprehent scientific research apoints you as a suspect. What can you do? This is creepy and scary and not something we should want.

    --
    It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    1. Re:This is creepy! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think we'd feel much better about it if we used this tool to remove suspicion from people, rather than to add suspicion. For example, this tool could probably rule out that the suspect is black or asian, that it's not a woman, it's not someone over 5'9, etc. Using the tool to generate a crappy portrait is the real bad move, because if you look like that, people will think that's evidence for your guilt. If this tool were only used to exonerate people and to remove them from the suspect list, who could object?

  7. Witchhunt generator 3.0 by nimbius · · Score: 2
    The most recent use of this technology was in tracking down the Baton Rouge serial killer, although the same problem exists here as does DNA evidence. Namely that close enough is good enough in the eyes of a court of law, particularly in the southern half of the United States.

    There was some argument that Derrick Lee was perhaps incompetent to stand trial; during psychiatric evaluations he scored an average of 65 on various standardized I.Q. tests, and a score below 69 is considered to be the threshold for what can be considered mental retardation. Lee was, however, deemed fit to stand trial.

    But like phrenology, lie detectors, and to some degree the shrouded witchcraft code of the breathalizer, its a modern tool in the fight against "the bad guy"

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  8. There's still lots of improvement opportunity by dingleberrie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Because it searches for correlation between faces and DNA, and it's getting arguably discernible results already. I'm expecting it to improve as it gets more sample data, more processing power, and more researchers identifying distinguishing facial characteristics for it to attempt a DNA correlation to. Further, when they find out how to show examples at different milestone ages, then that would lead to even more interesting applications. Imagine knowing what your baby will look like before they are born... and the societal questions that that brings.

  9. Re:Real helpful by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even very weak evidence is useful, even if it would be too weak for court. If you know* the perp is African-American, you can't go around suspecting everyone who's African American, but you most certainly can eliminate all your white/asian/hispanic suspects.

    *Sadly/amusingly, eyewitness accounts are not sufficient for this.

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  10. Snake oil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sounds a lot like snake oil to me. They have cloned domestic cats and found that the identical DNA used in the cloning produces totally different fur patterns. Here's an explanation why [[www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101215082939.htm]]. While human beings are not cats, it explains that when cells differentiate, random groups of cells become different things (legs, lungs, heart, etc.). Some things (like eye color) may be fixed, but everything else is negotiable. External considerations can also apply, a person who's mother drinks alcohol or takes certain prescription drugs (Thalidomide) can directly affect the appearance of their children, despite what genetics says.

  11. Re:Future of forencics. by durrr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Soon we'll be able to grow the criminal himself from the DNA and punish him even he's not found.

    Handing out multiple life sentences will take on a whole new meaning.

  12. Next: They arrest people based on these faces by allo · · Score: 2

    Sounds like a great idea.