Sharing your genetic data to solve crime

While the concept of allowing police to use genetic genealogy in crime investigations feels like a minefield, it shouldn’t be so quickly dismissed. The nascent field holds enormous potential to identify remains or solve cold cases.

A technician at HudsonAlpha, a genome sequencing lab in Huntsville, Ala., that has worked on more than 1,000 forensic genealogy cases, on April 28, 2021. Maryland and Montana have passed the nation’s first laws limiting forensic genealogy, the method that found the Golden State Killer.WES FRAZER/NYT

I kept thinking of Reina Carolina Morales Rojas, the East Boston immigrant from El Salvador who has been missing for seven months, after learning that Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan postponed a “DNA Drive Day” in Newton after the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts raised genetic privacy concerns. With the event, the first of its kind in the state, Ryan wanted to get the public to take concrete action to help solve cold cases by sharing their DNA.

While there is no update on Morales Rojas’s case, there are hundreds of unsolved cases of people who have been missing for years, sometimes decades. But lately, law enforcement agencies nationwide have been able to bring closure to many family members of people who were missing by identifying human remains — Jane or John Does — using novel genetic and genealogy analysis techniques. But that requires tapping into a large enough database of DNA data.

So why not share your DNA to help law enforcement connect the dots? Ryan’s initiative was voluntary and people would have had to sign explicit consent forms. Participants would take a free DNA test and receive a genetic ancestry report, just like consumers do when they buy DNA testing kits from consumer sites like Ancestry and 23andMe. “The purpose of the drive was really more just to facilitate people taking a free DNA test and making them aware of how it could be so valuable and impactful to helping resolve cases, especially for missing and unidentified people,” Claire Glynn, professor and director of the forensic genetic genealogy program at the University of New Haven, said in an interview. Ryan’s office retained Glynn’s services to host the DNA drive and to innovate in the field.

Glynn said the DNA from participants at the Newton drive would have been uploaded to two genetic genealogy databases that allow law enforcement agencies access to help in certain investigations. But the nascent field of investigative genetic genealogy, or combining DNA testing and analysis with genealogical research techniques to help solve crimes, is mired in controversy even though it has shown an incredible potential to bring justice to victims of cold cases or to families of people who have been missing for years. In February, Ryan’s office announced the use of genetic genealogy to identify and charge a suspect in an Acton case rape from 2013. (Only two companies allow police to access their DNA databases — FamilyTree DNA and GEDmatch — and it’s only data of consumers who have given their explicit consent for their genetic information to be used in criminal investigations.)

“I believe in this technology,” Ryan told me in an interview. “It’s going to revolutionize investigations, just the way that DNA did itself.” Her office is planning to host an educational forum to educate the public and engage stakeholders, like the ACLU.

“In this particular instance, the ACLU was concerned about the collection of DNA by the government outside of any regulatory scheme, especially as the collecting agency has no control over how the information will be used by other entities,” Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

Those are legitimate concerns. To be clear, no one thinks that genetic genealogy should exist without having guardrails in place. But it appears as though there already are. Glynn told me that people whose DNA would have been collected during the drive would be able to change “their privacy settings at any point” and opt out of participating in criminal investigations.

What about potential hacks to those databases? GEDmatch was hacked three years ago. But it’s unclear to me what the direct consequences of the hack were for those affected. I, for one, am more paranoid about my identity being stolen, which can happen in myriad ways online and offline. “Many people will talk about the ethical concerns of contributing your DNA to one of the two databases that we can use for [genetic genealogy] investigations,” Glynn said. “Whenever I hear people say that, I’m like, what are the ethical considerations of not doing it?”

She is right. Ryan and Glynn told me there have been at least 500 cases nationwide that have been solved via forensic genetic genealogy since 2018. I keep thinking of the families of people who have been missing for years. Or the victims of violent rape cold cases where a suspect can be identified and charged using genetic genealogy. To me, the practical uses of sharing DNA — a critical mass of data that can be used for good while protecting people’s privacy — overshadow its theoretical dangers.