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What are you talking about? The guy did not upload his DNA ever, the cops went to the company with a decades old DNA sample from zone of his crime scenes, and asked the genealogy company to try to find some similar DNA strands in its database, and they did. Then when they were fairly certain they had a match, they staked out his house and waited till he threw out his trash, then took it and matched the DNA to a cup then arrested him. Read the actual article on the case. They never got his personal DNA from the company, they got strands that indicated familial relationships then went through it all till they were fairly sure it was a blood relatives DNA, then went through THAT persons family tree till they narrowed someone who fit the profile and lived in the areas of the murders.
The article clearly states the company helped them do this.
I don't see where it says that they helped them. They could create a DNA file by sequencing crime scene data and putting into the correct format. If you have ever had your DNA sequenced you would see that the data is in a text file. If they put the data from the crime scene DNA into a file in the correct format they could then upload it to gedcom, do a "one to many" match and get a list of people whose have matching segments. Here are a few lines from the text file that I downloaded from Ancestry.
rsid chromosome position allele1 allele2
rs4477212 1 82154 T T
rs3131972 1 752721 G G
rs12562034 1 768448 G G
rs11240777 1 798959 G G
Oh is pretty easy. The cops have the DNA raw data from the felon, collected from his blood, hair or body fluids. They hire a computer expert, and this computer expert transform this raw data into Ancestry, 23andme or FTDNA files. They go to Gedmatch and create a fake account, upload this file and compare this DNA information to million of DNA files already at Gedmatch.
If they find a relative, they get their e-mail address, they get a subpoena from the Court and get the user's information from the e-mail server, such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
With that information they can get your drivers license, biometrics, and such, and of course, any relatives who matches to the felon, for example if you have an uncle who looks similar or used to live near the crime scene. Then they get his DNA from his trash can: used q-tips, used napkins, toilet paper, etc.
If this DNA is a 100% match, this is the guy !
They need an arrest warrant now.
Piece of cake.
That’s not what happened.
Quote:
Though the investigation for the Golden State Killer lasted decades, the DNA testing and matching took "only four months to get to the right pool of people," Holes told CNN. "With DeAngelo, there were over 100 distant relatives listed with some percentage of DNA match, so we looked at just how much DNA was shared. ... We only had to contact one or two people once we had all this information from GEDMatch.
We’re probably talking DNA matches who are 3rd or 4th or even 5th cousins who are guilty of nothing. Some of those 100 distant DNA matches had uploaded their family trees to Gedmatch. The investigators looked at those trees to find the common denominator - the same relatives/ancestors appearing in all or many of those trees. From that, and the various amounts of DNA shared, they constructed a rough family tree of the killer. Then they just narrowed the suspect list e.g. eliminated females, males deceased at the time of the killings, etc.
The killer may not have been listed in any of the trees. Live individuals are usually not identified on public trees. So, a dead parent or grandparent probably was the common link between the trees and the descendants of that person became the focus of the investation.
At that point an investigator probably sent an email to one of the tree owners asking about any descendants of that individual or just asked when and where the individual died (an obituary search would probably give information about children). People list their email address on Gedmatch because they want to be contacted about matches.
I agree with the privacy being given up if posted on a publicly accessible website. However, I doubt many thought through this any more than facebook users thought about where things could end up.
I wonder what portion of those who made dna public would think they did the right thing now?
Not that they want to protect a distant relative who is guilty but it opens up to abuses too. What is to prevent someone from posting publicaly someone else's dna without their consent similar to one posters comment above? Or is that even possible?
Anyone who has been in the military has given up his or her DNA...
I don't see where it says that they helped them. They could create a DNA file by sequencing crime scene data and putting into the correct format. If you have ever had your DNA sequenced you would see that the data is in a text file. If they put the data from the crime scene DNA into a file in the correct format they could then upload it to gedcom, do a "one to many" match and get a list of people whose have matching segments. Here are a few lines from the text file that I downloaded from Ancestry.
rsid chromosome position allele1 allele2
rs4477212 1 82154 T T
rs3131972 1 752721 G G
rs12562034 1 768448 G G
rs11240777 1 798959 G G
I already wrote a post stating I was mistaken about that.
I watched Smerconish do a segment on this story this morning and mischaracterized the role of Gedmatch and Y search(so infuriating) in addition he said he thought there might be a hippa violation. It is infuriating how these TV reporters are totaling botching up this story and calling for more government oversight into companies like Gedmatch. I suspect more reports will follow suit that peddle fear among the public. The public in general is too ignorant on this topic to know any better and these networks are counting on the publics big brother paranoia to sell these crap stories.
It's really interesting because we've reached a tipping point I think, with a critical mass of people who have done genealogical DNA testing in databases which can also be an immensely helpful resource for police departments wanting to ID criminals whose DNA they have collected but not found a match in their own databases.
Who thinks it would be an appropriate use for crime investigators? I'm still not sure how I'd feel about it, if police departments routinely turned to these genetic genealogy databases to search for relatives of criminals. I can see how it would potentially help solve many crimes. But would it turn people off from getting tested? Or would a new type of customer emerge who wants to help the police solve crimes by donating their DNA?
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It is infuriating how these TV reporters are totaling botching up this story and calling for more government oversight into companies like Gedmatch. I suspect more reports will follow suit that peddle fear among the public. The public in general is too ignorant on this topic to know any better and these networks are counting on the publics big brother paranoia to sell these crap stories.
