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If it wasn't common before, it will be now. I am very concerned about privacy issues here.
You're on line. How much privacy do you think you have here? Even people who live off grid and pay cash for everything will have privacy issues. And it's only going to get worse.
Lead investigator Paul Holes, a cold case expert and retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, said his team’s biggest tool was GEDmatch, a Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles that people share publicly. No court order was needed to access that site’s large database of genetic blueprints. Other major private DNA ancestral sites said they were not approached by police for this case.
The only thing they need is a Court Order or Subpoena once they have a match, so Gedmatch releases the user's information such as name, address, email, I.P., etc.
From there, they can investigate other relatives such as parents, uncles, kids, etc. and match the person with the physical description or biometrics of the felon they are looking for.
In this particular case, once they located the "possible" felon, they took DNA samples from his trash can (used q-tips, napkins, cups, toilet paper, etc.) and got a 100% match and the arrest warrant.
I think most of the companies would require a warrant before they would share the information with law enforcement. The exception is that you sign a waver to share your information if you want to get 'family matches,' which is what poice used here. You get those matches by sharing your information, so police don't need a warrant to find 'family matches' to their suspect DNA. The detective who came up with this idea must be pretty clever.
I chose not to do the family matches because I didn't want random people reaching out to me, and I had no desire to reach out to distant relatives. That being said, if one of my brothers was a murderer or rapist, and my DNA helped police catch them, I'd have no qualms with it being used that way if I was already publicly sharing it. I'd actually be grateful if it meant I wasn't inviting a horrible psychopath over for family get-togethers.
You're on line. How much privacy do you think you have here? Even people who live off grid and pay cash for everything will have privacy issues. And it's only going to get worse.
That's a whole lot different than the possibility of an insurance company being able to charge you more because your DNA shows potential for developing this disease or that. The possible ramifications for this are much farther reaching than just the stuff we willingly put online.
The only thing they need is a Court Order or Subpoena once they have a match, so Gedmatch releases the user's information such as name, address, email, I.P., etc.
From there, they can investigate other relatives such as parents, uncles, kids, etc. and match the person with the physical description or biometrics of the felon they are looking for.
I uploaded my DNA data to Gedmatch in 2013 at no cost (so no credit card or PayPal trail). I just went back to the site to refresh my memory. The ONLY identifying information the site has for me is the name and the email address I provided. Both can be changed by me. I chose not to upload a GEDCOM as I prefer to vet by email first. Thus there is no family tree.
So a court order or subpoena would give ZERO additional information.
(I also noted that deleting my DNA kit is now a menu option.)
All that said, I would be delighted if my DNA info led to the arrest of a serial rapist and murderer, no matter who that might be.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JanND
Seriously....privacy issues? When someone posts their info online it is no longer private. When working at a law office FB and all social media posts were being used in cases starting years ago.
But the person didn't post their info online. A relative posted theirs.
I don't think they are doing it much at all. If you read the article, it took a lot of hours and manpower to do this. The genealogy company gave them a huge list of names that had similar DNA strings and that could be related to him. They had to eliminate them all one by one, then when they did find DNA relatives, they had to investigate farther to pinpoint this man. They are not going to do this amount of labor for just any crook. This man killed 12 people and raped 40-some women (that they know about). This case wasn't closed, but wasn't actively being investigated anymore since the last (known) murder in 1986. Someone in the department decided to try this, and it worked. But again, too labor intensive for it to be used a lot.
They did this with the cooperation of the company.
It does make me concerned about privacy issues though, not so much for police but government and who knows what's coming down the pike.
You clearly don't know what you're talking about anyone can upload their raw autosomal DNA file and upload to Gedmatch to compare to other DNA kits. Once you've uploaded you've forfeited you privacy and the company didn't give the police a list of matches anyone who uploads can access a list of their matches up to 2,000 matches. The people that have the above concerns my advice is don't upload your raw DNA file to third party utilities such as Gedmatch. The rest of us who do use them appreciate them and don't need you paranoid folks that are worried about the government or getting caught by the police ****ing it up for us.
I uploaded my DNA data to Gedmatch in 2013 at no cost (so no credit card or PayPal trail). I just went back to the site to refresh my memory. The ONLY identifying information the site has for me is the name and the email address I provided. Both can be changed by me. I chose not to upload a GEDCOM as I prefer to vet by email first. Thus there is no family tree.
So a court order or subpoena would give ZERO additional information.
(I also noted that deleting my DNA kit is now a menu option.)
All that said, I would be delighted if my DNA info led to the arrest of a serial rapist and murderer, no matter who that might be.
They have your e-mail address. Which is public at Gedmatch. I can see your email address at gedmatch, if you are one of my matches.
That's a whole lot different than the possibility of an insurance company being able to charge you more because your DNA shows potential for developing this disease or that. The possible ramifications for this are much farther reaching than just the stuff we willingly put online.
Exactly. I will never trust insurance companies not to utilize this as a resource especially if laws revert back and allow winnowing due to pre-existing or potential problems.
Putting your DNA online also affects your family as their possible conditions can be tracked the same way. I went to a very interesting university seminar which explained all this and was quite concerning.
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