'There's No Going Back'
This week, “The Daily” is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened since the stories first ran. Today: the unexpected story of how family history websites have been used by law enforcement to track down suspects and win convictions — and why retroactive regulation won’t be able to reverse the trend. Guest: Heather Murphy, a reporter at The New York Times who spoke with CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist, and Curtis Rogers, a creator of the genealogy website GEDMatch. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.
Background reading:Today, we revisit Part 2 of our series on genetic privacy. If you’d like to catch up on the full story, make sure to listen to Part 1 as well.Do you think your DNA profile is private? A warrant granted by a judge in Florida could open up all consumer DNA sites for use by law enforcement agencies across the country.At a conference this fall, “rockstars” of the DNA industry and top law enforcement officers grappled with how to regulate the use of genetic material in policing. They also practiced solving murders together.Here’s how to protect yourself if you take a genetic test at home.
- Duration
- 32m
- Broadcast on
- 27 Dec 2019
- Audio Format
- other
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
This week, “The Daily” is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened since the stories first ran. Today: the unexpected story of how family history websites have been used by law enforcement to track down suspects and win convictions — and why retroactive regulation won’t be able to reverse the trend. Guest: Heather Murphy, a reporter at The New York Times who spoke with CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist, and Curtis Rogers, a creator of the genealogy website GEDMatch. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.
Background reading:
- Today, we revisit Part 2 of our series on genetic privacy. If you’d like to catch up on the full story, make sure to listen to Part 1 as well.
- Do you think your DNA profile is private? A warrant granted by a judge in Florida could open up all consumer DNA sites for use by law enforcement agencies across the country.
- At a conference this fall, “rockstars” of the DNA industry and top law enforcement officers grappled with how to regulate the use of genetic material in policing. They also practiced solving murders together.
- Here’s how to protect yourself if you take a genetic test at home.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply, see CapitalOne.com/BankGuy, Capital One NA. Member FDIC. Hey, it's Michael. This week we're revisiting our favorite episodes of the year, listening back and hearing what's happened since they first ran. Today, the unexpected story of how genetic databases are being used by law enforcement. It's Friday, December 27th. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bovarro. This is the Daily. This is really too good for just my little Roger Serning group. Let's start another website and share this with other people. We know this suspect kidnapped her, but we don't know who she is. Could we, in fact, identify somebody who had no clue who she was? When all we really would have is her DNA? My concerns were that there could be a violation of privacy. The Lisa's case basically laid the groundwork for where everything's going now. It's like when they first discovered that fingerprints could be used. We've now started a whole new way of finding people. Today, police identified a suspected double murderer after combing through DNA profiles on a website designed to connect family members. What his trial will tell us about the future of genetic genealogy in solving crimes? It's Friday, June 7th. So, Heather Murphy, you've been covering the story for the times. We left off with Kurt Rogers, who'd just seen that the site he had built, Get Match, this database of DNA profiles that people are mostly using to connect with their relatives, was used to crack the case of the Golden State killer. Yeah. Kurt then decided to change Get Match's user agreement and officially allow for law enforcement to use his site to find people suspected of murder and rape. So, what happened next? So, what happened next is that law enforcement agencies across the country are looking at this and thinking, "Hmm, what could this technique do for me?" So, one of the people that they want to talk to, "Hello, hi, CC, it's Heather. Hi, Heather, how are you?" is this genetic genealogist named C.C. Moore. Only other way that they can learn about their heritage and their birth families is DNA. C.C. Moore was already very well known in the genetic genealogy community. She's been on TV, she's running this Facebook group that helps people use these techniques. Genealogist C.C. Moore says Janet's only hope is DNA and offers to help. She's one of the leading genealogists using DNA testing and Get Match to help adoptees to find their biological parents. So, it was the day of the Golden State Killer announcement. I remember I got lucky and randomly called you and you were very upset and you were very concerned. Why were you upset and concerned in that moment? I had had many sleepless nights over the last few years because many law enforcement professionals had approached me and asked me if I thought I could use my techniques to help them stop a serial killer and it was something I really wanted to do and something deep down I felt was the right thing but I didn't feel it was the right time. She knew what was possible with genetic genealogy techniques but she and others in this little world that they're in of sort of advanced genealogical puzzle masters you could say. They had some concerns. I was pretty anticipatory you know how was this going to go? Would people see this as a good thing or a bad thing? Would they think it was an invasion of privacy? She's wondering what Kurt Rogers of Get Match is wondering which is are people going to be upset? People have joined these sites to find relatives. It feels very personal. How are people going to feel when they learn that law enforcement is also using that site combing through all that information and using it to arrest relatives they may or may not have ever met for crimes that they may or may not have ever done? I felt a responsibility, an ethical responsibility to my community in part because I had helped grow these databases. I think I was certainly one of the biggest promoters if not the biggest promoter encouraging people to upload to jet match specifically. If this went badly using it for a murder case then what if there were some sort of legal objection and the site got shut down and if people were upset about it and started
Transcription truncated.
This week, “The Daily” is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened since the stories first ran. Today: the unexpected story of how family history websites have been used by law enforcement to track down suspects and win convictions — and why retroactive regulation won’t be able to reverse the trend. Guest: Heather Murphy, a reporter at The New York Times who spoke with CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist, and Curtis Rogers, a creator of the genealogy website GEDMatch. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.
Background reading:Today, we revisit Part 2 of our series on genetic privacy. If you’d like to catch up on the full story, make sure to listen to Part 1 as well.Do you think your DNA profile is private? A warrant granted by a judge in Florida could open up all consumer DNA sites for use by law enforcement agencies across the country.At a conference this fall, “rockstars” of the DNA industry and top law enforcement officers grappled with how to regulate the use of genetic material in policing. They also practiced solving murders together.Here’s how to protect yourself if you take a genetic test at home.