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DNA Databases in the U.S. and China Are Tools of Racial Oppression
Two major world powers, the United States and China, have both collected an enormous number of DNA samples from their citizens, the premise being that these samples will help solve crimes that might have otherwise gone unsolved. While DNA evidence can often be crucial when it comes to determining who committed a crime, researchers argue these DNA databases also pose a major threat to human rights.
In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a DNA database called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that currently contains over 14 million DNA profiles. This database has a disproportionately high number of profiles of black men, because black Americans are arrested five times as much as white Americans. You don't even have to be convicted of a crime for law enforcement to take and store your DNA; you simply have to have been arrested as a suspect.
[...] As for China, a report that was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in mid-June claims that China is operating the "world's largest police-run DNA database" as part of its powerful surveillance state. Chinese authorities have collected DNA samples from possibly as many as 70 million men since 2017, and the total database is believed to contain as many as 140 million profiles. The country hopes to collect DNA from all of its male citizens, as it argues men are most likely to commit crimes.
DNA is reportedly often collected during what are represented as free physicals, and it's also being collected from children at schools. There are reports of Chinese citizens being threatened with punishment by government officials if they refuse to give a DNA sample. Much of the DNA that's been collected has been from Uighur Muslims that have been oppressed by the Chinese government and infamously forced into concentration camps in the Xinjiang province.
Related:
EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
EFF Sues Justice Dept. Over FBI's Rapid DNA Plans
Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database of All Citizens, Residents--and Visitors
San Diego Police Department Accused of Unlawful DNA Collection From Minors
Massive DNA Collection Campaign in Xinjiang, China
Study Predicts Appearance From Genome Sequence Data
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
Bavarian Law Broadens Police Surveillance and DNA Profiling Powers
DNA Collected from Golden State Killer Suspect's Car, Leading to Arrest
Another Alleged Murderer Shaken Out of the Family Tree
Indiana Murder Suspect Found by Using Genealogical Website
Public Ancestry Data Can be Used to Narrow Down the Identity Behind an Anonymous DNA Sample
Rapid DNA Analysis Machines Coming to Police Departments
FamilyTreeDNA Deputizes Itself, Starts Pitching DNA Matching Services To Law Enforcement
Genealogy Sites Have Helped Identify Suspects. Now They've Helped Convict One
U.S. to Collect DNA of All Undocumented Migrants
US Court Let Police Search GEDmatch's Entire DNA Database Despite Protections
China Uses DNA to Map Faces, With Help From the West
Cousin Took a DNA Test? Courts Could Use it to Argue You are More Likely to Commit Crimes
Ancestry Says Police Requested Access To Its DNA Database
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @05:18PM
Same reason hoovering up data from the internet is scarier than wire tapping: scale. Targeted collection of information is fine, collecting it on society at scale is creepy. DNA is already kind of blurring the lines between targeting and scale because it can be connected between people. Your finger prints are yours - your DNA, by contrast, is connected to your entire family going back quite far. It is also collected vastly more easily. Collecting complete and clear fingerprint sample is a very conspicuous thing. Collecting DNA at scale can be done completely inconspicuously. For instance the way we found Bin Laden was by setting up 'vaccination clinics' in the region of Pakistan we suspected he was in. We mass harvested the DNA samples and then ran them against a sample from somebody else in Bin Laden's family. We got a hit and used it to find his relatives which led us to him. After we killed him, numerous local vaccine clinic workers were murdered under suspicion of being CIA informants/agents. Team America, fuck yeah!
Let me ask you a simple question. What are the odds of another bad guy along the lines of a Hitler getting into power? People might disagree on the answer, but nobody would ever genuinely say it's 0%. It will happen, sooner or later. And all of these systems we're building up today are going to be used in the dystopia of tomorrow. I mean there's some really terrifying scenarios in near future (if not present day) technology. Imagine things like an engineered virus designed to target a specific population group, yet have no effect on others. You create scenarios where the bad guys of tomorrow could engage in a genocide scale event without anybody even realizing, including the victims! Imagine if the virus is designed to simply impair fertility or otherwise result in a 'natural' genocide.
The Jews in Israel actually did this exact thing [independent.co.uk] in a much more primitive form by giving Ethiopian migrants birth control measures without their consent or knowledge. It was only discovered when people started to notice that the Ethiopian fertility rate was near zero.