Graham CoopAug 18, 2023
Genetic genealogists working with US law enforcement have routinely been searching genetic databases that were opted out of forensic searches violating DOJ guidelines (and covering their tracks). #GeneticGenealogy
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/18/gedmatch-dna-police-forensic-genetic-genealogy/
Police Are Getting DNA Data From People Who Think They Opted Out

Forensic genetic genealogists skirted GEDmatch privacy rules by searching users who explicitly opted out of sharing DNA with law enforcement.

The Intercept
Show threadGraham CoopAug 18, 2023
The reason that they're violating this policy is likely bc genetic genealogy searches need large databases to find close cousins to an anonymous DNA sample, and databases opted-in for forensic searches are too small. See post by Doc Edge
https://gcbias.org/2018/05/07/how-lucky-was-the-genetic-investigation-in-the-golden-state-killer-case/
How lucky was the genetic investigation in the Golden State Killer case?

Last week, police arrested Joseph DeAngelo as a suspect in case of the Golden State Killer, an infamous serial murderer and rapist whose case has been open for over forty years. The arrest is huge …

gcbias
Show threadGraham CoopAug 18, 2023
This potentially includes forensic genetic genealogists using entire databases
that according to DOJ guidelines are off limits to law enforcement searches. (Note that LE had previously hid their use of MyHeritage in GSK case https://latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-08/man-in-the-window)
The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found

Subscriber exclusive: Of the many mysteries that surround the Golden State Killer, one of the most consequential is exactly how authorities caught Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. four decades after his murders began.

Los Angeles Times
Show threadGraham Coop
On top of this the LE searchable sections of these genetic genealogy databases can be pretty shady. Both gedmatch and familytreeDNA are marketing themselves towards both LE and customers, which feels like a COI.
E.g. FamilytreeDNA forces customers to opt-out of being searchable by LE (except recent EU accounts) and so presumably FamilytreeDNA hoovered up a lot of inactive accounts into their database that now charge LE to access.
Aug 18, 2023 at 9:36pmWeb
Show threadGraham CoopAug 18, 2023
Ancestry and 23&me are not publicly searchable and so not usable by regular LE genetic genetic genealogy searches, but LE & genetic genealogists are finding some partial ways around this
Show threadGraham CoopAug 18, 2023

The big picture here is that a small number of companies, some with serious COIs, have created a near US-wide searchable genetic database that they have effectively turned over to private contractors working for law enforcement.

Such a database would face controversy & legal hurdles if say the government tried to set one up themselves (see the legal debates over CODIS), yet the US has sleepwalked into allowing an even more dubious private system be setup apparently with few legal protections.

Show threadGraham CoopAug 18, 2023
Even if you're ok with US law enforcement having access to such searches, these databases are just as easily usable by law enforcement, governments, & other interests outside the US to identify anonymous DNA samples often presumably w even fewer legal guardrails