Investigators who used a genealogical website to find the ex-policeman they believe is a shadowy serial killer and rapist who terrified California decades ago call the technique ground-breaking.
But others say it raises troubling legal and privacy concerns for the millions of people who submit their DNA to such sites to discover their heritage.
There aren’t strong privacy laws to keep police from trolling ancestry site databases, said Steve Mercer, the chief attorney for the forensic division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.
“People who submit DNA for ancestors testing are unwittingly becoming genetic informants on their innocent family,” Mercer said, adding that they “have fewer privacy protections than convicted offenders whose DNA is contained in regulated databanks.”
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested Tuesday after investigators matched crime-scene DNA with genetic material stored by a distant relative on an online site. From there, they narrowed it down to the Sacramento-area grandfather using DNA obtained from material he’d discarded, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.
Authorities declined to name the online site. However, two of the largest, Ancestry.com and 23andMe, said Thursday that they weren’t involved in the case.
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Source: Use Of DNA In Serial Killer Probe Sparks Privacy Concerns
