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posted by janrinok on Friday May 18 2018, @01:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the creepy dept.

In Germany, controversial law gives Bavarian police new power to use DNA

Police in the German state of Bavaria will have new powers to use forensic DNA profiling after a controversial law passed [May 15] in the Landtag, the state parliament in Munich. The law is the first in Germany that allows authorities to use DNA to help determine the physical characteristics, such as eye color, of an unknown culprit.

The new DNA rules are part of a broader law which has drawn criticism of the wide surveillance powers it gives the state's police to investigate people they deem an "imminent danger," people who haven't necessarily committed any crimes but might be planning to do so.

[...] move was prompted, in part, by the rape and murder of a medical student in Freiburg, Germany, in late 2016. An asylum seeker, originally from Afghanistan, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison. But some authorities complained that they could have narrowed their search more quickly if they had been able to use trace DNA to predict what the suspect would look like. Existing federal and state laws allow investigators to use DNA only to look for an exact match between crime scene evidence and a potential culprit, either in a database of known criminals or from a suspect.

In 2017, federal authorities proposed allowing investigators to conduct broader DNA profiling, but the proposal stalled after critics called for an expanded ethical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of the techniques.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @06:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @06:42AM (#681036)

    could have narrowed their search more quickly

    To narrow the search more quickly. That is the theme here. This will never be expanded to use only-DNA as evidence to convict anyone. Also, there can never be instances where DNA etc will be planted. And the system automatically finds out who it was and picks them up and locks them up for life without a trial. That is where we are leading.

    Because a law cannot be abused to punish opposition and to stifle competition and control dissent. Never. Politicians are the best people out there. *I need to puke now*

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