I was wondering what everyone thought about law enforcement accessing genealogy websites to catch criminals. For example they recently caught the Golden State killer by matching his DNA to a relatives of his who had submitted there own DNA to one of these companies like 23andme or ancestory.com. They they traced it back to him through his relatives.
This raises big legal issues to me as to whether this is constitutional or not. Law enforcement needs probable cause to get your DNA sample and test it. They are getting around this by accessing a public database. And in the Golden state killers case it wasant even his DNA in the system so he did not personally consent to it.
Anyway thoughts?
This raises big legal issues to me as to whether this is constitutional or not. Law enforcement needs probable cause to get your DNA sample and test it. They are getting around this by accessing a public database. And in the Golden state killers case it wasant even his DNA in the system so he did not personally consent to it.
Anyway thoughts?
