I’m not sure of the timeline now but I seem to recall that this first came up through GEDmatch (which doesn’t do testing itself but allows people to upload results from different companies to compare them) and law enforcement had been creating data in compatible formats based on samples from cold cases. It hit the news because it helped identify the Golden State Killer. This got users nervous and they switched to you having to opt in allow that kind of matching.
FTDNA changed it ToS to allow law enforcement to use their database for rather vaguely defined crimes but that collided with laws (especially in the EU) and privacy groups, hence the large range of options available. In the EU you have to specifically opt in to allow those kind of matches,. elsewhere you have to opt out (which seems a bit confusing to me - it should be a blanket opt in).
CaptObvious@literature.cafe 7 months ago
You’re right, it was GEDmatch. I hope they got the right guy for the Golden State Killer and not just some dementia-ridden senior citizen that they could pin it on.
And I completely agree that any use should require positive action to authorize. No company should be able to assume consent just because they haven’t been explicitly told “No.”
Emperor@feddit.uk 7 months ago
Especially as FTDNA, for example, have a large array of settings, which, on one hand, is good for privacy but on the other could make it easy to miss.
The genealogical genetic tests only let you find a pool of suspects (in this case no more than two dozen men), they’d then be able to a 100% match through standard means. He admitted guilt and pleaded guilty to a number of other crimes that weren’t explicitly linked to him. The only real concern I have about that is whether the police used the threat of the death penalty to get him to help clear a backlog of cold cases that he wasn’t responsible for.