FB pixel

Awareness grows of infant DNA samples being used in crime investigations

Categories Biometrics News  |  Law Enforcement
Awareness grows of infant DNA samples being used in crime investigations
 

Some U.S. governmental bodies are growing squeamish over law enforcement use of blood spots routinely taken from newborns to screen for early fatal diseases.

Most new parents wince when they learn of or witness the pricking of their child’s fresh heel. What almost no parents could know is that police might someday quietly get access to that drop of biometric identifiers while investigating a crime.

Last month, the state of Michigan agreed to destroy 3 million stored dry blood samples taken from infants, according to public radio news publisher WKAR, based in Michigan State University.

The state is involved in a lawsuit that touches on biometric privacy and consent. According to the WKAR report, infant blood samples in Detroit are often stored for later use by scientists.

Meanwhile, In New Jersey, state police last year used a subpoena to take a stored sample for use in a 1996 rape case, according to reporting by the trade publication Law360. The publication says is the first known instance of stored infant blood samples used by police to prosecute a crime.

Unless parents claim a religious exemption, all babies in New Jersey are sampled. All states and the District of Columbia store the blood, but practices and policies vary.

There seems to be a shared sense of the unusualness of taking DNA evidence without a warrant from a subject who could not provide informed consent and without a parent’s permission.

New Jersey’s public defender office learned of the practice and tried twice to use the state’s open public records law to get more information about the practice. They were twice denied, according to Law360, and the public defender office sued.

The two agencies are due to appear in court September 8.

It is unclear where this trend is heading. Hesitancy by state governments to rein in police use of consumer biometric databases generally for crime investigations is eroding.

Article Topics

 |   |   |   |   |   |   | 

Latest Biometrics News

 

GLEIF kicks off corporate digital identity hackathon

The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has launched a hackathon aimed at developing new applications for its organizational digital…

 

Ethiopia gets accolades for leading digital transformation in Horn of Africa

At a recent meeting of Horn of Africa Finance Ministers in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Ethiopia’s digital transformation progress got thumps…

 

Financial fraud prompts $14M digital identity intelligence investment, calls for action

Financial institutions and regulators continue to invest in anti-fraud and identity verification. Barclays has invested in anti-fraud platform Heka as…

 

Age estimation at the shop, age verification online: France laws tested with questions

In France, age assurance tools are showing up online and at retail vendors selling age restricted products, prompting questions from…

 

Ofcom planning more safety measures to tackle addictive design

It has been noted previously in these pages that the UK is looking to be taken seriously in pursuing its…

 

OFIQ community reviews early results of biometric quality assessment tool

The standardization of image quality for face biometrics is a major step towards making population-scale biometric systems functional, and as…

Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Biometric Market Analysis

Most Viewed This Week

Featured Company

Biometrics Insight, Opinion

Digital ID In-Depth

Biometrics White Papers

Biometrics Events