Forensic Genealogy used to track criminals down?

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

This thread has been renamed to include more than the one single case we were discussing originally.

Thank you! Makes more sense to add to an existing thread.

Originally Posted by Mircea

Police are allowed to lie under certain circumstances and this would be one of them. I used to lie and the US Supreme Court has repeatedly said police can.

Legally speaking, the parents have no standing. They haven't been harmed. You might say their son is in prison, but that's their son, not them. Huge difference.

Professionally speaking, the police did a poor job. There are many ways to collect DNA without collecting it directly from the individual.

I agree about the parents. As I said, the fact they asked for both DNA would have been a red flag to me. Shocked that it wasn't to them.

Also agree LE did a poor job. Many people would have gladly given DNA to put a murderer in jail

[Roselvr]

Well guess what I found posted in the forensic genealogy FB group? Apparently the gal that solved the case, did not do it using FTDNA OR GEDmatch, she used My Heritage!

I'm still reading, it's a really long article. If anyone has issues with being able to read it because it's on a pay site, I have the article copied in my email, can send in a DM.


The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found: A covert operation and private DNA

But the DNA-matching effort that caught one of America’s most notorious serial killers was more extensive than previously disclosed and involved covert searches of private DNA housed by two for-profit companies despite privacy policies, according to interviews and court discovery records accessed by The Times.

The original version of events omitted not only the involvement of private databases, but also the access to sensitive information the companies had told users law enforcement could see only if “required” or presented with a “lawful request.”

....... The actual investigation was broader and more invasive, conducted without a warrant, and appeared to violate the privacy policy of at least one DNA company.

What prosecutors did not disclose is that genetic material from the rape kit was first sent to FamilyTreeDNA, which created a DNA profile and allowed law enforcement to set up a fake account to search for matching customers. When that produced only distant leads, a civilian geneticist working with investigators uploaded the forensic profile on MyHeritage. It was the MyHeritage search that identified the close relative who helped break the case.

Both companies denied involvement at the time.

MyHeritage’s privacy policy at the time stated that personal information “would only be released if required by law.” A corporate executive said the policy “did not explicitly” address such unprecedented police access. “It is possible that the civilian geneticist thought she was not violating our terms of service,” Vice President of Marketing Aaron Godfrey said.

Nevertheless, the search was not sanctioned, and MyHeritage has since revised its policies to make it clear that “such investigations are prohibited,” Godfrey said.

Even before these new revelations, the use of consumer databases to catch this serial killer sparked ethical debates as it unleashed a wave of efforts by other cold case teams across the U.S. to use similar means to identify violent criminals. As a result, most major consumer genealogical database companies created barriers against law enforcement access, the U.S. Justice Department adopted interim restrictions for the use of such databases, and Maryland considered legislation to limit law enforcement’s use of them.

Then in February 2018, a civilian genealogy expert helping the team announced that she had, on her own, uploaded the FBI’s forensic DNA to another consumer ancestry company, MyHeritage, and found a much closer match. A summary of the investigation written by the Ventura County district attorney’s office notes that this search violated MyHeritage’s privacy policies.


Rae-Venter said she used her personal account on MyHeritage and did not notify the company. She said her actions were approved by Kramer at the FBI. “He said if we’re going to solve this case, we need better matches,” Rae-Venter said. “In his opinion, law enforcement is entitled to go where the public goes.”