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This doesn't just effect people who willingly give up their privacy. Once a majority of our citizens are sampled, it'll be easy to paint the lack of a DNA sampl

This doesn't just effect people who willingly give up their privacy. Once a majority of our citizens are sampled, it'll be easy to paint the lack of a DNA sample for someone as a suspicious outlier. At that time, the public won't see the harm in mandating collection for everyone. Also, consider how DNA evidence is used. If you've got a 1-in-a-million chance of being matched, the hash might find you as a suspect for a crime. Then, during the trial, the prosecutor will tell the jury there's a 1-in-a-million chance they got the wrong person since the DNA matched. Never mind that the DNA is no longer statistically independent evidence (they used it to find you, of course it matches). If this approach is successfully challenged because it's not independent evidence, then, the standard practice will bring in "parallel construction" techniques. Once you're identified, prosecutors will use other evidence that doesn't have to meet "beyond a reasonable doubt" as the official reason they found you. Then, they'll use DNA in the trial as if it were independent evidence.

michaelt 8y ago
Once a majority of our citizens are sampled, [...] the public won't see the harm in mandating collection for everyone. The government doesn't need a DNA sample for Bob if they've got samples for Bob's family. According to [1] the Golden State Killer was found by matching a relative in a public DNA database. Although obviously if the DNA match says 'sibling' or 'parent' there are fewer suspects to comb through than if the match says 'third cousin'. [1] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/10/12/17957268/science-ancestry-dna-privacy https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/10/12/17957268/s...
mnw21cam 8y ago
If it's a 1-in-a-million chance of matching a random person, and there are ~7000 million people on the planet, on average this method will finger 7000 people for each crime? Yeah, the 1-in-a-million number isn't quite right, but there are other reasons why DNA evidence isn't perfect. Twins and chimeras for a start. And then you go on to washing machines, which are great for spreading DNA from multiple sources all over lots of things that tend to get analysed in a forensics lab.

michaelt 8y ago

Once a majority of our citizens are sampled, [...] the public won't see the harm in mandating collection for everyone. The government doesn't need a DNA sample for Bob if they've got samples for Bob's family. According to [1] the Golden State Killer was found by matching a relative in a public DNA database. Although obviously if the DNA match says 'sibling' or 'parent' there are fewer suspects to comb through than if the match says 'third cousin'. [1] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/10/12/17957268/science-ancestry-dna-privacy https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/10/12/17957268/s...

mnw21cam 8y ago

If it's a 1-in-a-million chance of matching a random person, and there are ~7000 million people on the planet, on average this method will finger 7000 people for each crime? Yeah, the 1-in-a-million number isn't quite right, but there are other reasons why DNA evidence isn't perfect. Twins and chimeras for a start. And then you go on to washing machines, which are great for spreading DNA from multiple sources all over lots of things that tend to get analysed in a forensics lab.