Page 5 - aruba-today-20190608

A5
U.S. NEWS Saturday 8 June 2019

Police use of DNA leads to backlash, changes to big database

By TERRY SPENCER say granting law enforce-
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) ment exceptions that vio-
— After California detec- late a website's policies is
tives used a popular online a slippery slope. They also
DNA database to track believe broad genetic
down a suspect in the de- searches violate suspects'
cades-old Golden State constitutional rights.
Killer slayings, other police While many people instinc-
agencies quickly adopted tively support the tech-
the same technique. nique if used to catch serial
Since that case was killers or rapists, they might
cracked last year, at least feel differently about their
50 other killings and rapes DNA profiles being ana-
have been solved nation- lyzed to pursue burglars
wide by using partial DNA and shoplifters. The ACLU
matches to find suspects' wants Congress and state
relatives, whose identities legislatures to impose re-
can lead to arrests. But strictions.
complaints about invasion A poll conducted last year
of privacy have produced by The Associated Press
a backlash, leading the and the NORC Center for
Florida-based database Public Affairs Research
known as GEDmatch to found that most Americans
change its policies. do not want law enforce-
The nonprofit website's ment blindly searching ge-
previous practice was to netic databases. Half of
permit police to use its da- those polled said such data
tabase only to solve homi- In this May 16, 2019 photo, Christopher Tapp hugs Carol Dodge at the conclusion of a press con- should be shared with law
ference where the Idaho Falls Police announced that Brian Leigh Dripps had been arrested for the
cides and sexual assaults. murder of Carol's daughter Angie in 1996, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. enforcement only with the
But its operators granted Associated Press consent of the person test-
a Utah police department ed. Thirteen percent said
an exception to find the match profiles available May decision, encourag- ble long-lost cousins, aunts law enforcement should
assailant who choked un- to police will dramatically ing them to opt-in to police and others. Adoptees have not use that information at
conscious a 71-year-old reduce the number of hits searches. found their birth families. all. About 30% said it should
woman practicing the or- detectives get and make "We strongly support law Police use the databases be shared without consent.
gan alone in church. The it more difficult to solve enforcement," Rogers in hopes of identifying the Carol Dodge waited more
assailant's DNA profile led crimes, said David Foran, a wrote in an email. "The use relative of a killer or rapist. than two decades before
detectives to the great- forensics biology professor of genetic genealogy for They upload a profile taken a suspect was arrested last
uncle of a 17-year-old boy. at Michigan State Univer- providing leads in violent from DNA left by a possible month in the 1996 slaying of
The teen's DNA matched sity. crimes has been called perpetrator. If they get a her 18-year-old daughter,
the attacker's, and he was "Law enforcement needs the biggest crime-fighting partial hit, they examine Angie, in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
arrested. these big databases for breakthrough in decades. that person's relatives to Detectives identified him
GEDmatch soon updated the chance that someone Its incredible success to find potential suspects. In using GEDmatch. Dodge
its policy to establish that might be in there," Foran date has been due almost a serial rape case, for ex- said the suspect, who po-
law enforcement only gets said. "Now that they are entirely to the GEDmatch ample, detectives look for lice say confessed, was not
matches from the DNA pro- requiring people to opt in, database." a male relative who lived on investigators' radar and
files of users who have giv- my guess is that database Such websites are popular near the attacks at the would never have been
en permission. That closed is going to become very with people researching time. If they find someone, identified otherwise.
off more than a million pro- small." their family trees. They up- they surreptitiously obtain "People who are opposed
files. More than 50,000 users Site co-founder Curtis Rog- load DNA profiles obtained DNA samples from the sus- to this have never lost
agreed to share their infor- ers said the change was from genetic testing com- pect's trash or something someone," Dodge said.
mation — a figure that the being discussed before the panies. Then GEDmatch's he touched. "People who have a clean
company says is growing. Utah case. He said users computers compare the The American Civil Liber- conscience shouldn't have
The 95% reduction in GED- received emails about the results and identify possi- ties Union and other critics a problem with it."q