Saturday, April 28, 2018

Another Villain Seeks to Harvest DNA Results

by Pa Rock
Amateur Genealogist

Yesterday's posting was about the recent capture of the once-notorious "Golden State Killer" in California, a man who was brought down through a DNA match to crimes he committed nearly forty years ago.   Police investigators were able to develop a list of suspects by submitting crime scene DNA to at least one genealogy web site that had a cache of DNA results on some of its members.  They found one or more people who shared some of the killer rapist's DNA, and from there began a search of family trees of those with close DNA matches and came up with a probable contender.  The investigators then (most likely) went through his trash and secured samples of their prime suspect's DNA -  and a comprehensive match was made.

And Joseph James DeAngelo is in the jailhouse now - having been charged with eight murders - so far.

The two largest web site DNA collectors - Twenty-three and Me and Ancestry.com - have both denied any involvement in this particular case, and it looks as though this felon was felled with evidence gathered at a free genealogy site that stores DNA information that their clients have obtained from other sources.

Ancestry.com is the world's largest genealogy web site, having reached a point where it is so comprehensive in what it has to offer in the way of research that it constantly draws in more new members, and each new member adds to its information base with their own genealogy research.  It is now growing exponentially.

One of the ways that Ancestry.com has been pushing its frontier of research is through DNA testing.  Ancestry is not a charitable organization.  It charges for its testing and will not allow users to submit DNA results from other sources.  Ancestry.com appears to be on a quest to genetically map the world,  A few months ago a DNA test through them was almost a hundred dollars.  Then the company had a sale and reduced the price to eighty dollars, and now it is at sixty.  The more people who get tested, the greater the Ancestry.com DNA database is, and the more valuable it becomes to genealogists - and thus more rush to join Ancestry as well as have their DNA tested.  It's a vicious cycle of unending profitability.

The Anceestry.com privacy statement is about as complex and byzantine as a Donald Trump pre-nup, with the company swearing to maintain a user's privacy, even if the company is subsequently sold.  The company will allow the use of aggregate DNA data for research while not disclosing the names of individual donors.  Those who so stipulate may receive the names and Ancestry contact information for persons whose DNA offers connections to their own.  (As an example, I have been notified of likely first and second-cousin connections - and some as distant as fifth cousins.)  From there, correspondence begins and trees are compared.

While not involved in the case against the Golden State Killer, Ancestry.com does have a stated policy of cooperating with court orders - so if the company is approached by police investigators with a proper warrant, one must assume that it will comply.

But law enforcement is not the only outside group with an interest in combing through DNA samples.  A nurse told me a few years ago that the real danger with having your DNA tested lies with the villainous insurance companies.  A critical health marker discovered in one's DNA could lead health insurers to either raise rates for that individual or deny coverage altogether.   The last presidential administration moved to end the predatory practice of denying coverage or raising rates on pre-existing conditions, but the current administration sits comfortably in the pocket of the insurance industry and views it as the wronged party.

Ancestry.com's privacy policy states clearly that it will not provide DNA information to insurance companies.  In this current rising tide of corporate criminality, let us hope that the genealogy giant sticks to its guns on that one.   Going to prison for crimes you knowingly commit is one thing, but suffering pecuniary penalties and medical neglect because of who you were at birth is quite another.

The bottom line is that with your DNA seeping its way through cyber space, and Alexa listening to every conversation in your home, you - and I - have damned few secrets.  Proceed with caution.

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