Genealogy websites help law enforcement put people in jail.
Tampa Bay Police detectives arrested a 14-year-old sexual assault suspect after searching a database of a genealogical testing webpage to search for DNA data compiled for a match, according to one initial report from a local newspaper. source.
And they got one.
Several states formalize genealogical detective units
“The victim may now have some closure in her life,” Ruben Delgado, Deputy Chief of Police for Tampa, said in a Initiated report. The police report places the assault in 2007, when a University of Tampa student was returning to her dorm after attending the Gasparilla Pirate Festival. She told detectives that she was intoxicated and could have tripped while walking when the suspect, named Jared Vaughn, offered to take her home, after which the rape took place.
After the incident, authorities collected DNA samples but had no match, which left the case unsolved for more than a decade. But later, in 2020, detectives re-examined the case using genealogical testing databases, including FamilyTree and GEDmatch, two companies the public uses to investigate their genetic background, and found potential matches. . Vaughn, 44, was identified by a lab, on the basis of which police went to his current residence in West Virginia, to perform another DNA test. This resulted in a match in 700 billion.
“It took 14 years for this case to be resolved, but it was something that was important for us and for the victim to get closure in this case,” Delgado said, according to the local report. “That was the whole idea of this team, to kind of take those cases that weren’t resolved (sic), to kind of re-energize them.” The state of Florida was the first in the United States to formalize an official genealogy unit, in 2018. California and Utah have also created similar detective units. And officials like Mark Brutnell, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, want the general public to hand over his DNA for use by law enforcement.
Law enforcement wants you to donate your DNA to genealogy websites
“Our success depends on information found in public genealogical databases, where participants – and this is important – must register for law enforcement matches.” In a case involving something as serious as rape, it’s easy to feel like the end justifies more than the means. But the law, like society (and morality), is not perfect. While forensic technology has come a long way, there are many instances where matching a person’s DNA with a crime scene (or body) may not have a direct bearing on the fact. that a suspect has actually committed a crime. Not necessarily.
Whether or not you want to voluntarily donate your DNA information to a publicly accessible database, this case highlights the changing face of law enforcement as technology creates new avenues of access to information about humans. Over the past decade, much controversy has surrounded social media websites like Facebook and its handling of user information during the Cambridge Analytica ordeal. Even Apple has taken steps to ensure greater privacy to increase user control over their information, as the Internet of Things grows to automate consumer behavior and attitudes about and about the things we do. let’s see online. Using DNA from genealogy websites to catch someone who has done great harm is a wonderful idea. But, with a growing majority of our past lives on the net, your DNA may be one of the last types of private information we will ever have.