Our DNA—which can predict what we look like, who we’re related to, where we came from, and which diseases we’re likely to get—is far too sensitive to leave its access to the whims of law enforcement and prosecutors.
Not Just San Francisco: Police Across the Country are Retaining and Searching DNA of Victims and Innocent People
"This week we learned that San Francisco Police used a woman’s own DNA—collected years earlier as part of an investigation into her sexual assault—to charge her for an unrelated property crime. What’s worse—it appears the S.F. police routinely search victims’ DNA in criminal investigations.
This practice is possible because San Francisco has been storing DNA gathered from rape survivors in the same local database where it stores DNA from rape assailants and other suspects. The San Francisco District Attorney stated the database potentially includes thousands of victims’ DNA profiles, with entries over “many, many years.”
...The San Francisco police chief asserted this week that the lab’s collection practices “have been legally vetted and conform with state and national forensic standards.” However, local DNA databases like San Francisco’s are not held to the same strict laws and regulations as state and federal-level DNA databases like the FBI’s CODIS database. This means that there is nothing to prevent local police and the DA from storing—and searching—DNA from nearly anyone who might interact with the criminal justice system. This includes crime victims, potential suspects who are never arrested or charged, people who have consented to have their DNA collected to rule themselves out as suspects, and even people whose DNA has been collected without their knowledge.
Even if police and prosecutors in San Francisco decide to limit the DNA included in the local crime lab database, this won’t affect similar “rogue” DNA databases in other parts of the country.
[. ] In San Francisco, the District Attorney has now recognized that the search of the rape survivor’s DNA was unconstitutional and dropped the charges. And at least one state senator has suggested introducing legislation to outlaw this practice. However, a law that merely addresses DNA collected from rape victims is not enough to prevent other improper and unconstitutional DNA searches in the future, both in San Francisco and throughout the country. Any legislation that’s introduced must also address the consent issues more broadly. And it should ban the warrantless collection of DNA without a person’s knowledge, as a new law in Maryland did last year.
It may also be time to go much further. New York introduced legislation that would do away with local DNA databases altogether. San Francisco’s latest problems with its DNA crime lab suggest municipalities shouldn’t be allowed to maintain these “rogue” databases at all. Our DNA—which can predict what we look like, who we’re related to, where we came from, and which diseases we’re likely to get—is far too sensitive to leave its access to the whims of law enforcement and prosecutors."
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