There are a variety of commercial services that provide the public DNA sequencing, such as 23andme and Ancestry, as well as sites that compare DNA databases, such as GEDmatch. Companies like Parabon NanoLabs offer law enforcement professionals the genetic genealogy tools that search these public DNA databases, finding far more genetic information that might be contained in government owned databases such as the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). These efforts are being used more and more to generate leads for law enforcement in criminal cases.
There are two parts to this unit’s journal question. First, assume you are working or will be working as a forensic science professional or crime scene investigator. Do you believe that law enforcement should be allowed access to commercial DNA databases to catch criminals? Why, or why not?
Second, would you as private citizen submit your DNA to a commercial database if law enforcement were to have full access to the databases? Why, or why not?