Individual services have also put some guardrails
on how law enforcement can use these databases.
After a change in its policy, GEDmatch now
requires that users opt in to have their
information included in law enforcement
investigations. This limited the pool of data from
over 1 million entries to around 181,000 as of
October 2019, but the company complied with a
warrant from the state of Florida in November
2019 that appears to have granted access to law
enforcement regardless of the user’s decision to
opt in. The site’s policy says that it will comply
with legal warrants and allows for authorized
members of law enforcement to upload DNA
information to the site.
For their part, Ancestry.com (which has its own
DNA test too) and 23andme say they do not
cooperate with law enforcement although they
would have to comply with a subpoena or
warrant. FamilyTreeDNA does have a policy for
cooperating with law enforcement investigations.
ARGUING WITH RESULTS
I really hate arguing with results. My history is
carefully written and preserved in books. I’ve
never known the pain of losing someone to
violence and waiting decades for justice. DNA
testing can help catch killers; it can also reunite
long-lost relatives or help them connect to a
personal history that was interrupted by war,
slavery, or political upheaval. But even those
uplifting stories can come at a cost. In an article
for The Guardian, Derecka Purnell explains
the contradiction:
“This generation’s Back to Africa movement
M
a
x
E
d
d
y
GEDmatch now
requires that
users opt in to
have their
information
included in law
enforcement
investigations.
