In solving a cold case involving a serial rapist and murderer who terrified Northern California for decades, police used a novel approach to track down the killer. Detectives accessed open-source genetic data to locate relatives of a person whose genetic material was collected at a crime scene.
Before arresting the Golden State Killer—believed to be responsible for at least 12 murders and 51 rapes—last week, according to Buzzfeed, authorities subpoenaed FamilyTreeDNA in March 2017 for information associated with a specific customer.
FamilyTreeDNA runs a public database that includes genetic information. With profile names and payment information associated with one account, police found what they thought was a genetic match to the potential suspect. But the elderly man from Oregon was eventually cleared.
Despite this dead end, authorities used public records for relatives of the potential Golden State Killer, eventually identifying 72-year-old former police officer Joseph DeAngelo as their primary suspect.
But what does this case mean for the millions of individuals who have taken commercially available genetic tests? Who owns and controls the information collected by companies such as 23andMe, AncestryDNA and GEDmatch?
“I would say consumers should not be worried, but they should be aware,” Robert Green, MD, MPH, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, told Time magazine. “It’s not necessarily a reason for concern, because we haven’t seen, to my knowledge, abuses of these databases. We have seen appropriate uses by law enforcement. I think we’re all glad a serial killer was caught.”
Privacy policies for these companies often claim information will not be readily available to law enforcement—and police efforts to obtain personal data will be resisted. But companies may be compelled to share information by a court order.
“Privacy is an important good, but it’s not the only good. We have to decide as a society how we’re going to trade these things off,” Ellen Wright Clayton, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University, told tech site Gizmodo. “I, like many people, think it’s probably a pretty good thing that this guy got captured. Bringing people to justice is an important social cause.”
Those who submit to genetic testing, like users of Facebook have recently learned, are willingly giving up some privacy. The industry of consumer-focused genetic testing, though, is still evolving, so policies and procedures will mature over time.
Nicholas joined TriMed in 2016 as the managing editor of the Chicago office. After receiving his master’s from Roosevelt University, he worked in various writing/editing roles for magazines ranging in topic from billiards to metallurgy. Currently on Chicago’s north side, Nicholas keeps busy by running, reading and talking to his two cats.