Warrant let police search online DNA databaseBy Lisa Vaas,
Detective Michael Fields of the Orlando Police Department in Florida ... successfully used GEDmatch to identify a suspect in the 2001 murder of a 25-year-old woman that he’d spent six years trying to solve. So, because Fields didn’t want to stop using DNA records – he was searching for suspects in the case of a serial rapist who attacked a number of women decades ago – he took his disappointment to the court.
As Fields reportedly announced at a police convention last week, he won what he was after: a warrant to search GEDmatch’s full database. As the Times reports, he’s now working with the forensic consulting firm Parabon to try to find a DNA match that will lead him to that rapist.
Legal experts told the Times that overriding a site’s policies in this way is a “huge game changer” for genetic privacy. The newspaper quoted Erin Murphy, a law professor at New York University:
The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that’s been overridden by a court. It’s a signal that no genetic information can be safe.
I've been telling friends and relatives for years that submitting DNA samples to geneology databases is risky, and now we're seeing why. Courts are now deciding that law enforcement should have complete access to the databases. This sets a precedent that will, in short order, be used to justify use and abuse of this data by every law enforcement employee, government agency and elected official that asks for it.
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