Police captured the suspected Golden State Killer last week — a man accused of at least 12 murders, 45 rapes and dozens of burglaries in California from 1974 to 1986. At the time, police weren't saying what led them to arrest 72-year-old Joseph DeAngelo. Now we know law enforcement managed to match some DNA left behind at a crime scene to a relative of DeAngelo's who used a commercial genetic testing company to trace their lineage — and then uploaded that data to a database anyone can access.
Obviously, it was a win for investigators — an innovative, high-tech new form of sleuthing. But are there privacy concerns here? Should police be able to search our genetic profiles at the click of a button, no warrant required?
Jim Braude was joined by Johnny Kung, the director of new initiatives at the Personal Genetic Education Project at Harvard Medical School, and Kade Crockford, director of the technology for liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts to discuss.
