Hurry and get your DNA on file!

Over at She Who Will Be Obeyed, Beth has a story about a request for DNA samples. Oh not just any samples mind you...

Police in Charlottesville, Virginia are coming under fire from some community groups - for deciding to collect DNA samples from hundreds of black men in the search for a serial rapist

This is wrong on so many levels it's just incredible. What I want to know is - where's Jesse Jackson? In general he never misses a chance to get his mug in front of a camera, especially when he can claim racism. Yet, outside of Beth's mention of this, I haven't seen it anywhere else on the web, nor have I heard it mentioned on radio news. Which I find interesting.

What disturbs me about this is not the racial element. The police have been told by victims (obviously) that the rapist is a black man. The disturbing element in this is asking innocent people to come forward and prove that they are innocent! But even more scary than that is the trend toward creating DNA databases. Here's why.

I blogged just a couple of days ago about how wrong it is to create a National ID database. I have just as many objections to DNA databases, maybe even more.

The dependence that people want to place on technology to answer all their questions and solve all their problems is pretty scary. And databases are notoriously error prone, not to mention insecure. I am not saying we shouldn't use them, but there seems to be an inordinate reliance placed on the accuracy of what is in a law enforcement database, to the point that it over-rides other evidence gathered at the scene of crimes. Or may even be the ONLY evidence at the scene.

What I want to know is - are the databases that police use to keep fingerprints and DNA are secure? Who can enter and change information? Is there a double check on information entry? What's the audit trail? Who checks that trail? How often? There is no way for the general public to check these things. We would never be told how much security is in place to keep out hackers from the outside - or even more worrisome - tech savvy people on the inside who might be paid to change data. Nor am I aware of any outside auditors who might be hired to check these databases and provide general reports to the public.

I will say this again - and keep saying it. Attorneys are becoming more attuned to technology. There are now specialties in law for computer law. I forsee the day in the not too distant future when an attorney is successful in challenging the integrity of these databases and having evidence thrown out because of it. In this case it would likely mean that a guilty party will walk away free. But that might be what it takes to get people to pay attention to databases - what's in them, how they are stored, how they are protected. We have this in place for other physical evidence - I've always been surprised that databases of law enforcement seem to be exempt from this.

And that's why the story Beth found bothers me. It's the little things that will get you in the end. The things most people never think of or consider will come back to bite you.

Comments

[Jack]

You and I think a lot alike.

"You're not paranoid if they really *are* out to get you..."