Conceptions of consent, family and jurisdiction in forensic genetic genealogical searches
Erin Murphy · 2022
Law enforcement officials in the United States announced in April of 2018 that they had identified a serial rapist and murderer known as the Golden State Killer (GSK) by linking crime scene DNA samples to the suspect using a recreational genetics database, thereby heralding a new era in forensic genetic investigation (FGG). The emergence of FGG affords a valuable platform from which to assess an incipient technolegal world – one in which cutting-edge technologies clash with well-established legal, social and political concepts. Forensic genealogy harnesses several distinct scientific advances, including the availability and affordability of inexpensive, large-scale testing of the genome; the commercialisation of recreational genetics by private companies and the development of open-platform sites to share genomic data. Hitched to one another by law enforcement, these technosciences pose a challenge to fundamental legal concepts that have long constrained law enforcement activity. Namely, they unsettle notions of consent, the spatial and relational limits on knowledge generation and conventional legal structures governing law enforcement access to information. Focusing primarily on the law and practice of forensic genetic genealogy in the United States, this chapter addresses each of these sites of conflict.