| I'm a huge privacy advocate, but I don't think DNA should be private. DNA database tech is a game changer and I absolutely support it being used to solve crimes. * DNA is immutable, comparable, heritable, and searchable in a tree. It's an ideal lookup key. Unlike fingerprints or face data you don't even need direct DNA evidence. A relative will do. * It doesn't invade privacy to look this up in a database. No homes were entered into, no phone conversations were tapped. Private lives weren't snooped. No relatives were harmed. * If you commit a violent crime, bad on you. If you leave DNA behind, you're stupid. The first deserves punishment; taken together doubly so. * DNA evidence alone may not be enough to convict, but it can be the basis for an investigation. * We already use video footage and artist sketches. Right now we rely on the "database" of collective human consciousness to find matches, which is unreliable and imperfect. When matches are found it's simply luck or chance -- cases shouldn't have to depend upon that when it's the same class of evidentiary data. I'd be in favor of the government having all of our DNA on file so long as it isn't used for discriminatory purposes (health insurance, job, organ transplant denial, ...) or for advertising to us. We're only scratching the surface of what's possible, though. Imagine when we extract higher dimensional features, such as gender, race, hair color, and ultimately facial structure from the DNA. Feed that into a photo database... Your phenotype and genotype != your private life. Even if we aren't happy with what we got, these are the most concrete representations of our own selves. It's our code and (usually) unique addressing label, independent of any database. We should view it as such. You're shedding DNA right now through exfoliation, waste elimination, and breathing. You can almost be guaranteed that corporate interests will start tapping into these sources in the next few decades. The law enforcement use case at least seems legitimate. I just don't want them reading my email. :) |
You aren't more deserving of punishment for being stupid. What kind of insane moral system do you follow?
>You're shedding DNA right now through exfoliation,
And I'd prefer that law enforcement not be able to track me everywhere I go because the risk of getting caught up in an investigation is too high.
The criminal justice system has serious flaws and I'd rather not be wrongly implicated just because I happened to shed DNA near where a crime happened.