http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/vie ... rry_about/Michael Cook | Monday, 26 April 2010
If you’re not a criminal, you’ve got nothing to worry aboutShould we file everyone's DNA in a database in case they commit crimes?
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Apart from privacy concerns, many experts worry that the technology for forensic investigation is far from perfect. Here in Australia, Victorian police were forced to suspend the use of DNA evidence for a month last year after a substantial miscarriage of justice. A 20-year-old, Fara Jama, spent 18 months in jail for a rape he did not commit. It turned out that DNA taken from him 24 hours before the crime over an unrelated offence for which he had not even been charged had contaminated the crime scene evidence.
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In fact, as Osagie K. Obasogie, of the Center for Genetics and Society, in California, pointed out recently in the Los Angeles Times, DNA testing is still an art as much as a science. Even though everyone’s DNA is unique, current tests still have a surprising margin for error. “The entire enterprise of DNA databases is based on the idea that no two people share the same profile. But Arizona's database of 65,000-plus entries was shown to have more than 100 profiles that were similar enough for many experts to consider them a ‘match’," he wrote.
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