from the privacy-policies-are-for-suckers dept.
Submitted via IRC for chromas
FamilyTreeDNA Deputizes Itself, Starts Pitching DNA Matching Services To Law Enforcement
One DNA-matching company has decided it's going to corner an under-served market: US law enforcement. FamilyTreeDNA -- last seen here opening up its database to the FBI without informing its users first -- is actively pitching its services to law enforcement.
The television spot, to air in San Diego first, asks anyone who has had a direct-to-consumer DNA test from another company, like 23andMe or Ancestry.com, to upload a copy so that law enforcement can spot any connections to DNA found at crime scenes.
The advertisement features Ed Smart, father of Elizabeth Smart, a Salt Lake City teen who was abducted in 2002 but later found alive. “If you are one of the millions of people who have taken a DNA test, your help can provide the missing link,” he says in the spot.
Welcome to FamilyTreeDNA's cooperating witness program -- one it profits from by selling information customers give it to law enforcement. The tug at the heartstrings is a nice touch. FamilyTreeDNA is finally being upfront with users about its intentions for their DNA samples. This is due to its founder deciding -- without consulting his customers -- that they're all as willing as he is to convert your DNA samples into public goods.
Bennett Greenspan, the firm’s founder, said he had decided he had a moral obligation to help solve old murders and rapes. Now he thinks that customers will agree and make their DNA available specifically to help out.
Related Stories
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: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @11:21PM (12 children)
I bought a kit, swabbed my dog's mouth, submitted it. Now I can commit crimes with impunity!
(Score: 5, Informative) by RandomFactor on Wednesday April 03 2019, @11:42PM (8 children)
It isn't just you. If some of your nearby relatives are on file, you effectively are as well.
Also if you decide you don't care for yourself, remember that yours being on file also allows them to zero in on kids, grandkids, parents, aunts, & uncles.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday April 04 2019, @12:07AM (2 children)
Easy. Just eliminate their DNA before they submit a DNA sample.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @12:40PM (1 child)
From a litigation standpoint, I don't think that has actually been tested. But it could be. For example, an 18 Y/O son could reasonably sue his parents for intrusion if they got one of these test done ON THEMSELVES. Particularly if he/she had markers for a genetic disorder. The loss is incured because this stuff could be used in the future by a potential mate, or even an employer. That fact is likely to cause mental harm or stress.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 05 2019, @12:08AM
Implicit assumption: the "Genome sequencing companies own the data and they can share it with whoever they want - law enforcement included - at large and with no regulatory safeguards".
Iff you accept this assumption, the "culprits" for the misfortune the 18Y/O can sue for are her/his parents - they should have known better (could they??? How?).
But... why does the assumption need to hold true? Why push the responsibility for safeguarding their own privacy to each and every person? Why ask everyone to be paranoid?
Do we really like a society based on mistrust as the default?
Only in the name of profit? (or, in the proposed context, "to avoid potential loss in the future")
Is "eternal economical growth" a purpose to each one needs to sacrifice every other purposes in life? Do we want/like to become "economic drones"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:56AM (2 children)
Forget about "nearby" relatives. DNA matching has gotten good enough to identify matches even out to fourth or fifth cousins, which (depending on the size of your family) could encompass tens of thousands of relatives.
At that point, it's only a matter of genealogy to begin to zero in. This procedure was perhaps first used in earnest in 2014 to track down relatives of a girl who had been abducted 30+ years before by the perpetrator of the Bear Brook Murders of New Hampshire. The lead genealogist estimated it took 10,000 hours of work to locate the relatives beginning with DNA database matches at the fifth-cousin level.
Using pedigree triangulation techniques that have been honed in the past couple years (along with increased public participation in DNA databases), the same genealogist was able to find the father of the abducted girl last year with only 10 hours of research. These techniques have been used again and again in the past few years to establish links on cold cases decades old.
Chances are you have a thousand or more relatives who could be connected to you already in DNA databases. And with various techniques those hits can be used to zero in on you even without close relatives in any database. With better DNA and genealogy tools, nobody is really anonymous anymore.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 04 2019, @02:09AM (1 child)
And by the way, I myself had no idea how far this stuff had progressed (despite headlines about the Golden State Killer last year) until I listened to the Bear Brook podcast [bearbrookpodcast.com] a few months ago. Absolutely crazy story about a cold case I had heard of years ago, which was finally solved. There's a lot in the later episodes about forensic genealogy and how it has advanced in leaps and bounds just in the past five years or so. Truly scary stuff to contemplate from a privacy standpoint.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday April 04 2019, @02:56AM
Yeah, it's progressed so far Wal-Mart can do it for you....along with a full on medical diagnosis! All in just 24 hours!
https://ifunny.co/picture/walmart-installed-a-medical-kiosk-for-10-and-a-urine-FuHgAw0Q6 [ifunny.co]
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If you took me seriously, you didn't notice my username....and I'm not sorry...
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @10:50AM (1 child)
What can you do if the hospital steals a sample of your baby's blood?
https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/twila-brase/moms-govt-collecting-your-babys-dna-without-your-consent [cnsnews.com]
https://www.schn.health.nsw.gov.au/files/attachments/newborn_screening_guidlines_2015.pdf [nsw.gov.au]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-biobank-dna-babies-who-has-access/ [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:41AM
you're not supposed to be having babies at the hospital. that's where they register the new slaves.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 04 2019, @12:37AM (1 child)
That would be a good test of whether they actually check the basics, like number of chromosomes.
What else has 23 pairs ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable_antelope [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeves%27s_muntjac [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parhyale_hawaiensis [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0, Redundant) by RandomFactor on Thursday April 04 2019, @12:46AM
Sable antelope (Hippotragus niger) 46
Reeves's muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi) 46
Human (Homo sapiens) 46
Parhyale hawaiensis 46
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:35AM
Ever get those mail-in poop sample kits from your doctor? "Honey... The doctor called. You have worms".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @11:26PM (3 children)
How very E. Germany circa 1970.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @04:26AM (2 children)
Turn back the clock to simpler times? To the golden age? Of rapists walking free?
You can't uninvent this stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @08:36AM
And yet you can't get humans to act in a civilized manner. Rich or poor, short or tall, polka dots or stripes, some humans will always be the vilest of creatures.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @11:53AM
No, but you can regulate how they use the technology and who they give the data to. And, using it to violate the privacy of people en masse is something that should be banned, along with all forms of mass surveillance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:12AM (2 children)
I tell this to all my friends who want DNA tests.
Get $X friends ($X>10) , order $X kits and then map random names to kits.
Keep the key for yourselves, and then you get your DNA matched. This will polute their database.
The only fly is if family history is needed from some diseases.
But it really isn't that useful, unless there are *known* familial traits...
(Score: 4, Funny) by darkfeline on Thursday April 04 2019, @03:52AM (1 child)
I read that as X dollars worth of friends and wondered how many friends $10 would get me.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @08:39AM
Depending on which service you use, on FB that can get you up to 100 friends.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by crafoo on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:44AM
Enjoy your false-positives. It's like a lottery ticket. But you get your life ruined instead of cash. Sure, you might not go to prison. If you have a good lawyer.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday April 04 2019, @02:32AM
From the CEO of FamilyTreeDNA:
We as DNA testing companies have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. We must share our information with law enforcement as I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
*apologies to Base Commander Jack D. Ripper
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @03:06AM (9 children)
A moral obligation - to get rich on the dumb fucks that send him data.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 04 2019, @07:00AM (8 children)
What's with the parentheses? Makes it sound like his name is echoing or something.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @07:22AM (6 children)
AFAIR, “alt-right” (I think, I don't really follow much of US politics) use it as a some derogatory mark for, err, jews, or something? I don't quite remember. Better try googling, I guess.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @08:41AM
Are you implying (((AC))) was trying to denigrate a capitalist? What would the alt-right prefer, freedom loving state run corporations?
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday April 04 2019, @10:20AM (3 children)
This is correct. It started with a firefox extension that would put the triple brackets around known Jews in online articles.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @11:02AM (2 children)
Awesome.
Can it also highlight known rapists, murders, arsonists, terrorists, muslims, thieves, politicians, and lawyers?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday April 04 2019, @04:01PM (1 child)
I'd settle for it marking known rapists, murderers, and politicians. Especially, the latter of the three, need more scrutiny to keep them honest.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @12:32PM
Okay, yes, those 8 groups can be condensed down to the 3 you suggested.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 04 2019, @06:10PM
I guess they didn't have the coding skills to use a yellow star.
I love how they're literally labeling Jews yet object to being called fascists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @10:53AM
it's the new "air quotes" that's parser friendly?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 04 2019, @03:26AM (3 children)
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @06:15AM (2 children)
I notice you didn't read the small print of the Terms of Service, like 100% of the other customers. It's on page 4814, bottom of third paragraph:
...and having donated my firstborn to the mercy of the Corporation I also solemnly swear that any and all results of the tests performed and information inferred by the Corporation and selected 3rd parties and welcome to use the materials as they see fit, including but definitely not limited to selling to highest bidding Law enforcement agencies of any countries on any planets.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @08:45AM
Oh hogwash. They don't have to be the highest bidding law enforcement agencies, they just need to pay list price (plus a variety of taxes, fees, surcharges and for digital delivery).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:50PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @06:51AM (7 children)
so if some perverted uncle is some serial rapist or killer, then I don't want them found out? Or what is the point of the outrage here?? Do people get outraged when some prisoner is found out to be a serial rapist 20 years ago?
Sooner or later, Gattaca level of technology will be more real than not. So I don't know why the outrage here over some random company when you can just test entire city by analyzing their garbage or sewer or whatever ... it's just a matter of time for your ID to be DNA based. Why? Because forgeries are getting better too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @08:58AM (2 children)
I think part of the concern here is that the police will make DNA screening a de facto standard practice. Once it becomes "normal" they can arrest you for <insert something minor or fabricated here> and then submit your DNA for testing to see if you have enough markers to make you a suspect or related to a suspect.
I don't think we're too many years away from developing the technology for a DNA-alyzer that can become part of every traffic stop. "License, registration, insurance and sample please." Once SCOUTS decides that DNA is no different from fingerprints, some industrious company that utilizes a shit ton of AWS servers will provide a cloud-based real-time DNA matching service that they will sell to every LEA imaginable.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Thursday April 04 2019, @11:24AM (1 child)
> SCOUTS
Supreme Court of United The States?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:15PM
Yes. That decision will eventually happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @09:34AM (1 child)
if you don't see what point of the outrage is maybe you deserve to be tagged and controled like in gattaca or just keep your whore mouth shut when adults are talking!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:45AM
exactly. law loving piece of shit...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @09:58AM (1 child)
You really don't get the outrage? You need it spelled out for you?
Ok...
DNA is not an exact science. In fact it is fraught with all kinds of errors and shenanigans.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/family-dna-ancestry-tests-review-comparison [sciencenews.org]
https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/shame-and-scandal-23andme-family [geneticsandsociety.org]
https://www.livescience.com/63997-dna-ancestry-test-results-explained.html [livescience.com]
But even if it were an exact science, and even if you could get these unlicensed and unregulated labs to somehow adhere to the best possible practices in every test they run, the idea that you can create a giant database and search it in this way suffers from the prosecutors fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy [wikipedia.org]
Let me break it down for you in case you slept through statistics 101.
Every type of test has 2 errors rates, the false positive and the false negative.
DNA tests are of a type that can only be used to exclude a person, not include them. So what you need to examine most closely is the false positive rate.
Let's be super generous here and assume that they always follow best practices, the lab is always clean and sterile and they follow protocol perfectly. None of these are really to be expected from a consumer service meant to give you giggles about who your ancestors diddled for the low, low price of only $19.99. But let's assume they cleaned up their act.
In a forensic lab, using the very best equipment a highly skilled and competent lab tech performing DNA testing can be up to 99.99% accurate meaning a false positive rate of only 0.01%
Sounds great doesn't it?
This means that out of 10,000 tests only 1 will result in a false positive.
There are 250 Million people in the USA. Which means a best case false positive for only 2500 people if they tried to match everyone.
But that is exactly what is happening here and worse. Each time someone submits a sample, they do compare it against all samples in their DB and the odds of a bad match are 0.01% meaning ~2500 people are included just by chance.
The odds in this scenario do not relate to the odds of actually being guilty, they relate to the odds of being picked at random. While the odds of being picked at random may be low for an individual condition implying guilt, i.e. a positive DNA match between 2 samples processed by the same tech in the same lab with directed specific testing. The probability of being picked at random for any condition grows to 1 as more conditions are considered, as is the case in multiple testing or an indepth search of a wide database of questionable quality.
So that 0.01% it quickly goes much higher to about 1%, just from those causes alone.
These companies are going out as far as 5 degrees of separation in order to try and find any connection, no matter how tenuous. There are only 6 degrees of separation between you and any other human on earth. Meaning that whether the person being searched for is the Queen of England or Jack the Ripper, you have a connection to them.
What this does is make every single person a suspect, because all positives are being considered no matter close or how far. So we go to 100% guaranteed they will find someone who is a reasonably close match.
This wouldn't be so bad, except that companies are selling this service to law enforcement.
It's one thing to find out that your daddy ain't your daddy but your daddy doesn't know, it's a whole other thing to be facing loss of freedom for up to the rest of your natural life, or even the death penalty over specious evidence.
Law enforcement will bend over backwards in their interpretation of any result in order to secure a conviction.
So they get a starting point from this service, then start working the family tree, getting samples from all 10,000 or so first, second, third, fourth and fifth degree relations...
But this is assuming they will actually put in the leg work to start ruling out your entire haplotype group. The truth is they will simply grab the nearest person on the list that they have jurisdiction over and construct a reasonable scenario for the prosecutor from there.
Therefore it might be your "pervy uncle", who was the real murderer (doubtful, but bear with me a minute), however it will be you who is captured and convicted. This is because the test relied on DNA in the first place and therefore there will be no way to rule you out based on DNA, since DNA is what looped you in, in the first place.
This change of tactic from one of exclusion to one of inclusion, skews the results in such a way that Law Enforcement will be able to close many, many cases that were previously cold. However there will be a lot of innocent people locked away and/or placed on death row as a result, until judges come to their senses, are not baffled by this bullshit and start ruling that this method cannot be used even for probable cause purposes, let alone as evidence at trial.
In short people are outraged because without their consent they have had their genetic information added to a database of suspects that can be searched at will be law enforcement who are doing anything they can to close cold cases and have the unlimited resources of the state backing them in order to secure a conviction.
Congratulations! You are now a suspect in every single cold case murder and rape currently on some law enforcement agent's desk. I hope you know a good lawyer!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:45PM
Nice post, but there were 250 million people in the US like 25 years ago. Now there are around 330 million, and god knows how many more illegals.
As for the odd uncle story, another reason the police could try to come after you, is if the uncle is dead already, but you they can still convict.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @11:06AM (1 child)
Hey, can I deputize myself?
Is this going to hurt?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday April 04 2019, @04:29PM
You can't deputize yourself, but you can apply to be deputized. How much it hurts, depends on where you're applying.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"