During an investigation into the stabbing of four University of Idaho students in 2022 the F.B.I. identified a potential murder suspect after tapping consumer DNA databases that were supposed to be off limits, new records show. Investigator compared the DNA profile from a knife sheath found at the scene of the crime with two databases, GEDmatch and MyHeritage, which appears to have violated key parameters of a Justice Department policy that calls for investigators to operate only in DNA databases “that provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites.” The case has shown both the promise and the unregulated power of genetic technology in an era in which millions of people willingly contribute their DNA profiles to recreational databases, often to hunt for relatives, the New York Times reports.
In the past, law enforcement officials would need to find a direct match between DNA at the crime scene and that of a specific suspect. Now, investigators can use consumer DNA data to build family trees that can zero in on a person of interest — within certain policy limits. While some companies have allowed users to choose whether their DNA information may be used to help criminal investigations, the decision by the authorities to skirt those limits could mean that the companies’ privacy assurances are essentially meaningless. eErin Murphy, a law professor at New York University who focuses on DNA and new policing methods, said she was surprised that the F.B.I. might have violated rules that the federal government had spent so much time working to establish. She was also concerned that investigators seemingly had no repercussions for doing so. “I think what we are teaching law enforcement is that the rules have no meaning,” she said.