DNA databases solve crimes, raise concerns
Experts: Science led to arrest of Valley man for 1969 murder puts privacy, rights at risk
Millions of people will unwrap at-home ancestry testing kits this holiday season and eagerly swab their cheeks and mail in the saliva, hoping their DNA will unlock clues about their heritage or reveal longlost relatives.
The tests, which can cost as little as $59, offer entertainment and a chance to uncover family secrets. But with law enforcement increasingly mining the DNA databases to solve cold cases, as in the arrest last week of a Lehigh County man suspected in the 1969 murder of a San Diego woman, experts say consumers should think about
their privacy when they hand over their DNA.
“Few people would list their Social Security number, provide their fingerprints, or post their recent medical test results on a website where such important personal information could be readily accessed by almost anyone, yet that is exactly what certain people are doing with their DNA on genealogy websites,” said former Montour County District Attorney Rebecca L. Warren, now an attorney in Allentown.
“The lure of discovering your ancestry or learning of a predisposition to certain genetic medical conditions appears to outweigh any concerns about privacy,” she said.
More than 26 million people used at-home DNA kits as of 2019, researchers at MIT estimated, based on sales of the most popular brands, Ancestry and 23andMe. If trends continue, that number could grow to 100 million customers by the end of 2021, creating the potential for tracing the relationships between nearly all Americans, including those who never purchased a test.
Forensic genealogy has only been around a few years, and many people first became aware of the tool in 2018, with the arrest of the “Golden State Killer,” a former California police officer who pleaded guilty in June to more than a dozen murders and 50 rapes from the 1970s and 1980s.
Investigators used the DNA evidence from one of the murder scenes to create a profile of the killer, which they then uploaded to a genealogy website. That site linked the killer’s profile to a distant relative of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. Investigators then confirmed the link by collecting DeAngelo’s DNA from his car door and a discarded tissue, according to Associated Press.
Police in San Diego have not yet revealed details of how they landed on John J. Sipos, 75, of North Whitehall, as the suspect in 24-year-old Mary Scott’s Nov. 20, 1969, killing, saying only that they used forensic genealogy after the case went cold.
News reports from 1969 say Scott was “apparently strangled” in her apartment, which was about a mile from where she worked as a go-go dancer. Neighbors heard screaming from her apartment around 2:30 a.m., according to a Los Angeles Times article, “but did not investigate.”
Scott’s relatives told The Morning Call last week that Scott’s younger sister, Rosalie Sanz, persuaded police to take another look at the case after reading about DNA and forensic genealogy. In April, police told Scott’s daughter that they had identified a suspect.
Sipos, who was charged with murder on Wednesday, is being held in Lehigh County Jail, awaiting an extradition hearing. His attorney, John Waldron, is exploring whether to have Sipos tested to determine if he’s competent to stand trial.
Cases like Sipos’ and the Golden State Killer’s have raised questions about how wide a genetic net police should be able to cast when attempting to solve a case. Michael Benza, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said it will be a test for the courts when one of these high-profile arrests is challenged.
“We have just started to consider the constitutional implications of this type of search,” Benza said.
Lawmakers have made some attempts to clarify how police can use commercial DNA databases, though only one state, Illinois, has a law specifically addressing the privacy of biometric information. The U.S. Department of Justice last year issued an interim order outlining how police could use forensic genealogy, stating it should be limited to violent crimes such as murder and rape, as well as to identify human remains.
Police should first exhaust traditional crime-solving methods, including searching their own criminal DNA databases, the Justice Department policy states. And they can only use the commercial databases of companies that explicitly inform customers that police may use their sites.
The new policy does not require police to get a warrant before searching commercial databases. And it only applies to federal, state or local agencies receiving federal funding to use genetic genealogy searches. Final guidelines are expected this year.
Genetic testing companies know consumers are growing more concerned about privacy, and some have updated their policies prohibiting the release of DNA profiles to police without a warrant. Ancestry, 23andMe and Helix, three of the most popular at-home genetic testing companies, last year formed a coalition to determine “best practices” for forensic genealogy.
Andrew Geronimo, an attorney who teaches government transparency at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said consumers should also insist on knowing how their DNA will be used in the future.
“There are serious privacy implications when people willingly provide their DNA to private companies, including how those companies store that information, how they would respond to a request from law enforcement, and the extent to which a user can have their data removed or deleted, especially if the initial company is acquired by another company,” Geronimo said.
Americans appear to narrowly support police use of forensic genealogy to solve crimes, a Pew Research Center study released in February shows. Researchers surveyed more than 4,200 adults in the United States and 48% said they were OK with DNA testing companies sharing customers’ genetic data with police. A third said it was unacceptable, and 18% were unsure.
Warren, the former Montour
County district attorney, warned that it will take government a long time to catch up with the fast-moving science behind DNA tests, so the onus is on consumers to read the fine print if they’re concerned about police having their genetic information.
“In all fairness, most individuals are not even aware of the privacy risk,” Warren said. “People believe — wrongfully so — that their information will be private and protected unless they agree otherwise. However, the contracts with these genealogy companies allow a customer to agree that their DNA can be shared with research partners or to match with relatives. Surprisingly, the majority of customers opt-in to these uses.”