![]() ![]() Some people worry that law enforcement, insurance companies and other entities might use such sensitive information against them. Ancestry testing companies sample hundreds of thousands of single DNA letters (known as SNPs) in a person’s entire genetic instruction book, or genome, to determine information about ancestry, appearance and health. The sequence of those letters determines how proteins and other biological molecules will be built. ![]() ![]() Neither police, nor other customers, have access to individuals’ raw genetic data, which includes the chemical letters of DNA - A, T, C and G. Should FamilyTree DNA customers be worried about their privacy? Law enforcement “cannot search or ‘dig through’ FTDNA profiles any more than an ordinary user can.” For any additional information, police would need a warrant or subpoena, the letter said. Police can see data only from people in FamilyTreeDNA’s database who are a genetic match with those crime scene samples. Those FBI investigations are being conducted on behalf of other law enforcement agencies to find suspects in violent crimes and to identify remains of deceased people.īut that doesn’t mean law enforcement has unfettered access to customers’ DNA. The process is similar to looking at someone’s LinkedIn profile to see who is in the person’s social network, says Melinde Lutz Byrne, a forensic genealogist at Boston University who is involved in helping law enforcement solve rape and murder cases.įamilyTreeDNA’s Gene-by-Gene laboratory has “processed a handful of cold cases for the FBI,” company president and founder Bennett Greenspan said in a letter emailed to customers on February 3. Genealogists can then use the closest matches possible to build family trees and identify a likely suspect. Police are interested in determining how much DNA people in the database share with genetic samples from crime scenes. ![]() Can you help us by answering a few brief questions? What genetic information can law enforcement access? What’s this box? Learn more about it and our Transparency Project here. FamilyTreeDNA and two other companies declined interviews, so we quoted from the email and other written statements. We spoke to a forensic genealogist, Melinde Lutz Byrne, to learn more about how police and genealogists use DNA data and how hard it is to steal genetic information. After the story broke that FamilyTreeDNA was working with the FBI, the company sent customers - including Saey - an email explaining why. Tina Hesman Saey, the reporter covering the story, got her DNA tested by FamilyTreeDNA for a series about genetic testing. Where did the idea for this story come from? Giving police access to genetic data raises privacy concerns. Here’s what the announcement really means.Ībout this story Why are we doing this story?Ĭustomers of FamilyTreeDNA learned that police can use the company’s private DNA databases to search for suspects in murder and rape cases. While some people support the company’s effort to help catch suspected rapists and murderers, privacy advocates and some customers of DNA testing services are alarmed by the idea that police could poke around in people’s genetic data. Until now, law enforcement agencies had mostly used a public database called GEDMatch for these “genetic genealogy” investigations.īut FamilyTreeDNA has granted police permission to upload data from crime scene DNA and search the company’s more than 1 million records to look for relatives of potential suspects. Since Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested as the suspected Golden State Killer last April, police have announced the identification of suspects in at least 25 cold cases, including five in January ( SN Online: 4/29/18). But there’s one big difference: Police are trying to track down rape and murder suspects using relatives’ DNA. A popular at-home DNA testing company has announced that it is allowing police to search its database of genetic data just as customers do when looking for family members. ![]()
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