Posted on 10/12/2018 9:58:52 AM PDT by ETL
If you’re white, live in the United States, and a distant relative has uploaded their DNA to a public ancestry database, there’s a good chance an internet sleuth can identify you from a DNA sample you left somewhere. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that by combining an anonymous DNA sample with some basic information such as someone’s rough age, researchers could narrow that person’s identity to fewer than 20 people by starting with a DNA database of 1.3 million individuals.
Such a search could potentially allow the identification of about 60% of white Americans from a DNA sample—even if they have never provided their own DNA to an ancestry database. “In a few years, it’s really going to be everyone,” says study leader Yaniv Erlich, a computational geneticist at Columbia University.
The study was sparked by the April arrest of the alleged “Golden State Killer,” a California man accused of a series of decades-old rapes and murders. To find him—and more than a dozen other criminal suspects since then—law enforcement agencies first test a crime scene DNA sample, which could be old blood, hair, or semen, for hundreds of thousands of DNA markers—signposts along the genome that vary among people, but whose identity in many cases are shared with blood relatives. They then upload the DNA data to GEDmatch, a free online database where anyone can share their data from consumer DNA testing companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com to search for relatives who have submitted their DNA. Searching GEDMatch’s nearly 1 million profiles revealed several relatives who were the equivalent to third cousins to the crime scene DNA linked to the Golden State Killer. Other information such as genealogical records, approximate age, and crime locations then allowed the sleuths to home in on a single person.
Geneticists quickly speculated this approach could identify many people from an unknown DNA sequence. But to quantify just how many, Erlich and colleagues took a closer look at the MyHeritage database, which contains 1.28 million DNA profiles of individuals looking at their family history. (Erlich is chief science officer of the ancestry DNA testing company.) If you live in the United States and are of European ancestry, there’s a 60% chance you have a third cousin or closer relative in this database, the team projected. Their success rate was similar when they did searches for 30 random profiles in GEDmatch. (The odds drop to 40% for someone of sub-Saharan African ancestry in the MyHeritage database.)
Assuming you have a relative in one of these databases, what are the chances police could find you from an unidentified DNA sample, the way they nabbed the alleged Golden State Killer? To find out, Erlich and colleagues combined the MyHeritage database information with family trees, and demographic data such as rough age and likely geographic location. On average, that allowed them to use a hypothetical DNA sequence to home in on 17 “suspects” from a pool of about 850 people, the team reports today in Science.
GEDmatch likely only encompasses about 0.5% of the U.S. adult population, but millions of Americans are using DNA ancestry testing services. Once the GEDmatch figure rises to 2%, more than 90% of people of European descent will have a third cousin or closer relative and could be found in this way. “It’s surprising how small the database needs to be,” says population geneticist Noah Rosenberg of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who was not involved with the work.
Rosenberg and colleagues showed last year that a profile in a consumer DNA database can be matched up with the same person’s profile in law enforcement forensic DNA databases, even though they use a different, smaller set of DNA markers. Today in Cell, they report that more than 30% of individuals in the forensic databases can also be linked to a sibling, parent, or child in a consumer database. The two types of databases combined could make it even easier to find a suspect from a DNA sample. The linked consumer DNA profile could also reveal physical appearance or medical information for a criminal or their relatives, such as genes for eye color or a disease, even though the forensic databases aren’t supposed to contain that kind of information. “More can be done with them than has been claimed,” Rosenberg says.
Although these studies are encouraging news for solving crimes, they raise privacy concerns for law-abiding citizens, Erlich says. One possible solution suggested by his team is that the consumer DNA testing companies digitally encrypt a customer’s data and that GEDMatch only allow these encrypted files to be uploaded. That way a law enforcement agency couldn’t upload DNA sequence data from its own lab without an ancestry company’s cooperation. (The police can’t just pretend to be a customer and send crime scene DNA samples to companies like 23andMe because the company’s sequencing machines typically can’t process scant, degraded DNA samples.)
Erlich also thinks U.S. officials need to revisit federal rules protecting people who volunteer for research studies. A recently revised guideline for biomedical researchers, called the Common Rule, assumes that a research participant can’t easily be identified from their anonymized DNA profile. But in its paper, Erlich’s team used GEDMatch to identify a woman who was part of a study using her anonymized DNA profile and birth date, which is often publicly available to researchers.
Genetic policy experts agree that changes to how genealogy databases and DNA sequencing firms operate or are regulated are needed. The digital signature might be “a partial solution,” says law professor Natalie Ram of the University of Baltimore in Maryland. But all the players in the direct-to-consumer DNA sequencing industry would have to agree to this scheme, she notes. “If not, we’re back to square one.”
Instead, she and others recently argued in Science that states and Congress should pass laws limiting situations where law enforcement can use genealogy databases to find suspects. It may be reasonable for a murder case, but not for a petty crime, Ram says. “Finding the right balance is important.”
I think they’re officially out of it (it was one of their people).
Of course, I think they’re officially out of Boston Dynamics, too.
It’s almost that time of year for the creepy robot sleigh ride!
Meanwhile, the massive data collection at all levels continues.
After MyHeritage was featured on "Fox & Friends" last year, I did their test. I have over 2500 matches--the closest one is a second cousin.
Whatever happened to “beyond a shadow of doubt?” “.
I don’t know that such a standard has ever existed. To what are you referring?
Happy Holidays!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZu04v7_hc
Well, they certainly weren’t going to say “Merry CHRISTmas!”
California has money for rocket trains that go from no where to no where, and it doesn’t have money to do complete DNA tests of rape kits going back years.
Apparently, this is sop for most big blue cities/counties/states in America.
We know retired and still working ER nurses friends. Who feel that the elites in charge of Sacramento, and our big blue cities don’t want those DNA rape kits used to identify the rapists.
The Genographic Project (Have Your DNA Checked, Find Your Roots)
Our DNA was used in this Project:
If you're company has less than X percent of a certain race as employees, you must be guilty of racial discrimination, yes?
Be wary of "dragnet dna". It's one thing to use it as a possible lead in a case, but shouldn't be used by itself to get something like a no-knock warrant.
Of course, many won't care until they are the ones mistakenly dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and stuck w/jail and thousands in legal fees defending themselves.
Before supporting what's discussed in this article, I strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with the concept of false positives.
First off, convictions are to the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, not shadow of a doubt.
Secondly, the narrowed pool of 20 is a pool of persons of interest, for closer investigation. No one will ever be arrested, let alone convicted of a crime for being part of this initial pool.
Once they identify the single person of those 20 who had means, motive and opportunity, police can then obtain a warrant to compel a DNA test of that individual for comparison with the DNA evidence collected from the victim or at the crime scene.
I just don't feel invaded by it.
[We know retired and still working ER nurses friends. Who feel that the elites in charge of Sacramento, and our big blue cities don’t want those DNA rape kits used to identify the rapists.]
Of course not. That would reveal the stats that Eric Holder and Barack Hussein Obama were trying to hide. And the Democrats would have more of their voters in prison for the violent crimes they committed.
“A yet to be invented DNA reader would be a perfect credit card pin number.”
Too slow and too intrusive.
Use electronic thumb prints. The DMV’s have a device that copies, measures and records your thumb print in about a minute.
I had the “pleasure” of renewing my Ca. Driver’s license yesterday, and I had my thumb print electronically recorded 3 times in one hour.
Retinal scanning will be even faster and more reliable than the electronic thumb print gear.
Just go with both. For a “welfare” system. Cut down on the fraud. Just need to record the biological ID of millions. Fingerprints and retina scans.
My LG smart phone has fingerprint security id as do many other high end phones.
Our adult children are in their 50’s, and they were foot printed after birth decades ago to identify them in case of mix ups or worse at the hospital.
Now there is an electronic method used by hospitals, who don’t want to get sued for losing or swapping babies after they are born.
https://www.bioenabletech.com/newborn-baby-foot-identification-solution
[My LG smart phone has fingerprint security id as do many other high end phones.]
Yep. I’m sure we can trust them not to upload it to a big brother database or anything. ;)
Unless one actually committed the crime, the increase in odds of being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night from a DNA screening is statistically insignificant.
On the other hand, the odds of a DNA test immediately clearing an innocent person as a suspect are almost 100%. I like those odds, which is why my wife and I both uploaded our DNA.
Oh yes. Are they assigning SSN’s at birth? I actually don’t know.
“...I had found both my grandmother’s birth mother and the biological father.”
Were they happy to hear from you?
“My LG smart phone has fringerprint security id as do many other high end phones.”
Those are great until you get near the age of 80. Then most of us have no finger prints, as we have worn the prints off.
Yesterday, at our wonderful DMV, I had 3 electronic fingerprints of my right index finger. None of them worked.
Mine are already in several Federal DBs... and have been for a few decades, that horse left the barn long ago.
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