[tomsthumb]

There’s a meaningful difference between the government getting a warrant to look for a specific person’s DNA and searching everyone’s DNA to see if it’s a match. Why should the government get to digitally “stop and frisk” three hundred thousand people because they have a hair sample from a murder scene?

[astura]

Same reason the government should be allowed to search Facebook for information on a person of interest, or use the whitepages, or search public records such as property records, or use Google to search the web. They don't have any more access than a normal user, so they don't need a warrant. They are acting just like a member of the public and get the exact same results you or I would get if we used that site. If it's available for a member of the general population, it's available to law enforcement without a warrant. That's the way it's always been.

People are putting their genetic information into a database in order to be searchable by their genetic information. If they have a problem with being searchable by their genetic information, then they shouldn't upload their genetic information into publicly searchable databases.

>The Family Tree database is free to access and can be used by anyone with a DNA profile to upload, not just paying customers.

>Officials at Family Tree said customers could decide to opt out of any familial matching, which would prevent their profiles from being searchable by the FBI. But by doing so, customers would also be unable to use one of the key features of the service: finding possible relatives through DNA testing.

>In December 2018, the company changed its terms of service to allow law enforcement to use the database to identify suspects of “a violent crime,” such as homicide or sexual assault, and to identify the remains of a victim.

>In a statement, Greenspan, the president and founder of Gene by Gene, Family Tree’s parent company, said the firm would not be violating its terms of privacy to its customers, despite the FBI’s access.

>“We came to the conclusion that if law enforcement created accounts, with the same level of access to the database as the standard FamilyTreeDNA user, they would not be violating user privacy and confidentiality,” Greenspan said.

>In a statement, company officials told BuzzFeed News that despite the FBI’s access to the database, agents would not be able to obtain more information than what is accessible to normal users of the service.

[shawnz]

> The Family Tree database is free to access and can be used by anyone with a DNA profile to upload, not just paying customers.

But the terms claim you are only able to upload files which are "my own or belongs to someone for who I am legally authorized to act." If FBI agents are creating accounts and then uploading DNA which doesn't belong to them, that seems to me to violate the terms.

[int_19h]

Why is matching DNA analogous to "stop and frisk"? If the govt doesn't actually get access to the raw DNA data, but only the records that matched the sample they submitted, it sounds like a very narrow tool that doesn't infringe anyone's privacy without a valid reason (i.e. if there's a match).

I mean, fundamentally, how is it different from the police asking a hotel administrator whether John Doe stayed there?

[module0000]

>> I mean, fundamentally, how is it different from the police asking a hotel administrator whether John Doe stayed there?

I don't think it's different. Hopefully the hotel operator has the good sense to tell any law enforcement without a warrant precisely where they can shove it. It sounds like this DNA company does not have that good sense, however.

[guntars]

You talk about meaningful differences, but then lump a search in a database with stop and frisk. Either everyone is allowed to use hyperbole or no one is - you can’t have it both ways.

[tomsthumb]

Do you understand the difference between searching an individual you know had committed a crime and searching pool of people that might contain an individual?

No hyperbole needed, and only one way is present :)

[ribosometronome]

I'm hung up on that I, as a member of the general public, can essentially do the same thing when using the service more-or-less as intended.

In talking about searching a pool of people, I'm not really seeing how this is different than using Facebook to search for Criminal McEvildoer's name. The police are searching a pool of people (facebook users) to match a string. It's effectively the same thing, yeah?

The big issue here is that people are making privacy decisions without thinking through the ramifications of the privacy decisions.