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Comment by deadbeeves | Hacker News Reader

That jury would have been equally swayed if the sample had come directly from me.

You might not have been a suspect otherwise. If they found DNA of an unknown person at the scene but you hadn't put yours in a database, how would they know who to look for?

If only you hadn't worn that hoodie that made you look exactly like that guy that robbed that convenience store.

Honestly, some of these responses are so strange. It's like these people don't understand that they don't live completely by themselves and that the actions of other people affect them, regardless of what technology exists.

It's not strange. there's abundant evidence the juries are over-reliant on scientific expert witnesses in matters which jury members are not competent to assess themselves, and that this often leads to mistaken outcomes. You probably wouldn't be convicted just because you had a hoodie and jeans on that made you resemble a suspect; the idea that two people dressed in very common clothing might be mistaken for each other is something anyone, even a kid, can understand. But juries are likely to take the opinions of forensic experts very seriously, even when they're not well founded in fact or experience.

https://www.thepmfajournal.com/education/medico-legal-forum/...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4581010/

Now the chances of your DNA being at the scene of a serious crime and you being convicted a a result of a data breach are fairly remote, more the stuff of crime fiction as entertainment. But strange things do happen:

https://daily.jstor.org/forensic-dna-evidence-can-lead-wrong...

Let's start over. You say that if a genetic database didn't exist you wouldn't have been made a suspect, so I reply with a random example where you could be made a suspect without the assistance of high tech. To keep the hypothetical relevant, in it they take you into custody and take a DNA sample from you to compare against one from the crime scene. Either they get a match and that makes you more of a suspect, or they don't and it doesn't. If they get a match, potentially you'll need to convince a jury that the presence of your DNA at the crime scene doesn't mean you had anything to do with the crime.

I don't see what the existence of the database changes. With or without it there are ways by which you can be linked to a crime you had nothing to do with, and it doesn't seem like it can't be used for anything other than quickly getting a list of people who might have been at a crime scene. The article you linked is not about DNA databases, it's about how DNA evidence is misused by law enforcement. All it says about DNA databases is that black people are over-represented in them.

Sorry your judicial system depends on the savviness of random idiots off the street, but it has nothing to do with whether companies like this one exist.

You seem to have completely missed my point. Of course you could be incorrectly made a suspect without any high tech being involved, it has always been thus. The existence of genetic databases provide additional ways you could incorrectly be made a suspect.

Sorry your judicial system depends on the savviness of random idiots off the street, but it has nothing to do with whether companies like this one exist.

You don't have to opt for a jury trial int he US but most people do. Fascinated to hear which enlightened polity you inhabit that is immune from miscarriages of justice.

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