> It's not bits of litter, is information you may not want to share. I'm sympathetic to that, and if someone wants to draw up legislation around the use of DNA

> It's not bits of litter, is information you may not want to share. I'm sympathetic to that, and if someone wants to draw up legislation around the use of DNA without some kind of due process I'd be supportive of that idea. But it would be very difficult to regulate the collection of DNA, given existing law on property rights + the fact we spew it everywhere we go in the form of spittle, skin cells, sweat, etc. Also, the utility of DNA for the purposes in the article is only present when it's tied to a person. It would be a massive undertaking to plan out sifting through everyone's garbage 1 by 1 to build a DNA database. There's much less of a privacy threat from someone collecting unknown garbage, and if you're not a suspect in a murder it's unlikely in the near future anyone will steal your trash specifically.