DNA From Genealogy Sites Used By Police to Find Criminals in Your Family Tree

Have you or your family members submitted DNA to a genealogy site like Ancestry  or 23andme? If so, your DNA may be included in police investigations without your knowledge, and without you ever being suspected of a crime.

According to an ABC News (April 27, 2018) report, genealogy / DNA websites were used to find the suspected 'Golden State Killer', Joseph James DeAngelo.

Authorities used genealogical websites to track down the suspected serial killer known as the "Golden States Killer," sources told ABC News, describing it as a long, painstaking process.

The "Golden State Killer" is believed to have committed 12 murders, at least 50 rapes and multiple home burglaries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Investigators used DNA from one of the crime scenes and compared it to what’s available on genealogy websites to find a family tree for the suspect, sources said.

Officials then worked their way down that family tree until they found Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer.

Police placed DeAngelo under surveillance and later obtained his DNA from an item officers collected. It was confirmed as a match.

Privacy advocates are concerned that these companies leave the door open to sharing a customer’s genetic information with law enforcement. They say that doing so represents Orwellian state overreach and worry that customers may not realize what they’re agreeing to — or, even worse, that the imperfect technology involved puts innocent people at risk.

Bicka Barlow, a San Francisco-based defense attorney who specializes in DNA cases, says the public should think long and hard before completing an at-home DNA testing kit.

Barlow argues that DNA evidence "is not fool proof" and that new technology is actually increasing the chance of misidentifying people with DNA.

"When you did DNA testing back in the good old days you would get a single profile of one individual and that makes it quite easy to do a comparison," Barlow told ABC7 News. "But nowadays, the tests are so sensitive that crime labs come up with mixtures, meaning multiple people in a sample, somewhere around 70 to 80 percent of the time."