today's topic question, I get asked a lot and there's a lot of interest in this topic,
is can Ancestry DNA be used by law enforcement? well let's dive into this and try to understand
what might or might not be possible. You may have heard about DNA being used for law
enforcement purposes and one of the first cases of commercial DNA being used for that happened just
a few years ago with the golden state killer. Now since that time different companies have
taken different stances on how they want to either allow this or not allow this. But today
we're talking specifically about Ancestry and whether or not law enforcement can use the
Ancestry database for their investigations. If we actually go to the Ancestry website
we can see right up front that Ancestry has a policy they say Ancestry does not voluntarily
cooperate with law enforcement to provide our users with the greatest protection under the law.
We require all government agencies seeking access to Ancestry customers’ data to follow
valid legal processes and do not allow law enforcement to use Ancestry services
to investigate crimes or to identify human remains. So that's pretty simple. And you would
think that the answer then of course is going to be no. Law enforcement can't use Ancestry for
any of their investigations. But I think people are concerned because there's a difference between
what is allowed by the terms and conditions of the website. What maybe the law allows and
in actual practice. What somebody who let's say is unethical could do. So let's go over what Ancestry
allows as far as DNA in their database. First off to put your DNA into the database you have
to sign up for an account. Now as you've seen if you use Ancestry this does not have to be
your real name but it can be an alias that you use there. So could an unethical law enforcement
personnel sign up for an account on Ancestry with an alias without any real identifying information?
absolutely. They definitely could. Signing up for an Ancestry account is free. Now that's
limited as far as what you can do with that but it is free. So the next thing then would
be getting a DNA sample into the Ancestry database. Now Ancestry along with 23andMe
is unique in that they don't allow transfers into their database. What that means is if you take a
DNA test with let's say FamilyTreeDNA you can actually download that information. And it is
a spreadsheet file that has the locations and what the snip was for that location.
And you can take that information and you can upload it to a place like MyHeritage or GEDmatch.
And they're reading that file with the snip information and the snips to determine your
matches and determine the ethnicity results and use their other tools as well. With Ancestry they
don't allow that you can't send them a digital file and have them put that into their database.
So the only way to get DNA into the Ancestry database is by taking a test. In other words,
giving a sample. Now the sample that they use is a saliva sample where you spit into a tube.
When you think about law enforcement and crime scenes most of the evidence they gather is not
going to be a big pile of spit they could scoop up and put in a test tube and send off to Ancestry.
But that doesn't mean you can't still use the Ancestry test to get a sample in another way. If
you actually look online there are some people who have tested out how to do a swab with like a q-tip
and get enough of the skin cells and stuff on from your cheeks to be able to mix with some water,
some purified water to get that sample. Now, this is usually used for people who have trouble
spitting. It's a, you know, legitimate concern. It's actually something that I've heard affects
people as they get older much more. So there's a reason why people have looked at this process and
figured out a way that they can still get people's DNA into Ancestry without that person having to
spit. Now again they're still getting that sample from a live person. And they're putting it in the
preserve pretty much immediately after taking that sample. And so they have really the best chance of
preserving that sample and being able to get a good DNA test from it. When we think about law
enforcement again and we're looking at the evidence being gathered from a crime scene.
You're usually talking about evidence that has been sitting out for hours sometimes days.
In the case of missing bodies that might have been weeks or even months
that they're able to actually find that body and be able to get that sample. Now
the idea here is not just to get a DNA sample but be able to match with other people. There are
other methods that they can get a nice DNA sample that has all the readings they need but we can't
transfer that into Ancestry DNA. So we actually want to get a sample to Ancestry for this. So for
law enforcement, it would be very difficult to get a good sample to be able to send. Now let's
say that they do get a sample and they put this into the Ancestry file and send it off to Ancestry
that's where they're going to come up with the next problem. Now we've already said that they've
set up this alias account that has you know false information and they're sending off the sample
under this account. Well, that sample has to be processed by Ancestry and Ancestry is looking
for specific things. So first off their test is designed for saliva. Basically, the cells that
you're finding in your mouth. So if you're taking a sample from something else there may be other
things that are corrupting it. If you read the instructions for taking a sample from Ancestry
you are supposed to not have eaten or drank anything for I think it's 30 minutes at least. And
the whole idea there is that the only DNA we're going to find in your mouth is your DNA not the
DNA of the hamburger that you ate five minutes ago or the wine that you just drank. But you're
probably not gonna find much DNA in the wine anyway because of the way that it's processed.
So law enforcement putting this sample in a tube and sending it off to Ancestry
is now going to go through and they're going to process it.
Now because of how that sample is gathered, it's not gathered in the optimal way for what
Ancestry's process is designed for. In other words it's not somebody spitting in a tube
nor is it somebody taking a swab inside of a cheek of a living person and quickly putting that in the
preservative with you know whatever water they need to make sure that it has those cells to look
at. They're taking a sample that has been sitting out possibly in the sun for days or other things
or is just old and just the simple fact that these cells are no longer part of a living body.
They are going to start to degrade and the DNA in that is also going to start to degrade as well.
So the difference here is we have a person that's just taking a test by spitting in the tube.
Literally you're talking about fractions of a second between when that spit was in their mouth
to when it is in the tube with the preservative. With this unethical law enforcement
hypothetical we're talking about we're gathering a sample that has been outside of that human body
for hours or days or even months and has started to degrade. And we're finally putting it in the
preservative. Now that preservative may stop the degradation at that point but you still have
all those hours and days of degradation. As Ancestry is processing this, this is going
to make a difference. Some of you may have had the experience where Ancestry's emailed you back after
you mailed in your sample and they said hey there was something wrong with a sample we couldn't
process it correctly can you send us another one. And so they send you another kit you spit in it
again and you send it back. I've heard of some people that have had that happen you know two
maybe three times in a row but usually, it happens just once and the second time it works. In fact,
that's with 23andMe. The very first test that I took my wife went through perfectly and mine had
problems. And so they had to send me another kit to get that new sample. So in other words
what Ancestry's looking for is they're looking for this good DNA sample that has almost all
the snips that they're expecting from. It is not degraded or anything like that and if there is any
of that showing then they're going to flag that as hey there's a problem here. So we're going
to send it back and ask you for another sample. Now the other problem with DNA sampling is that
with normal commercial tests you're spitting and since you haven't drank or ate for 30 minutes.
It is just your DNA that you're spitting into that test tube.
When we're gathering evidence from a crime scene there's actually probably a pretty
high likelihood it is not just your DNA. When you think about going through life
you leave bits of DNA everywhere from your skin cells every time you grab a doorknob
there's a little bit of DNA there but there's also a little bit of DNA of every other person
who grabs that doorknob after you until that doorknob is clean and wiped off and is back to
not having anything on it. And the same can be said with everything else if you look in
a bathroom as far as hair. There's probably hairs from everybody in your house in your bathroom and
they're all mixed together and jumbled together. And you know when you think about your shower that
big old clog of hair in the drain. Well that's not just one person's hair that's everybody's hair
and that has to all be separated out if you want to try to use that for DNA.
So there's a very good possibility that some of these law enforcement samples that are being sent
unethically to Ancestry. And this is hypothetical are contaminated with not just one person's DNA
but multiple people's DNA. That is going to cause problems when they're analyzing that sample. An
answer is just going to flag that and send it to send it back and say “hey there's a problem
with this can we get another sample?” there's that part of it. Now the next part is when they
actually let's say they have a good clean sample. Just one person's DNA and they go through and they
process it. Remember back what I said about that degradation. So a normal sample from me or you
that we send off to Ancestry. They're going to look and they're going to find
information on about 500,000 snips and that's what their chip is set up for. With a degraded sample
there's going to be some portion of those 5, 10, 25, 30 percent that it just can't
identify because of that degradation. From the different companies that have submitted these
law enforcement samples to GEDmatch they have actually said in some statements that
you can definitely tell a law enforcement kit from other kits from how much information has been
processed. Basically what they're saying is that hey these law enforcement samples are not nice
pristine samples we wouldn't expect them to be. So you don't get all of the information that you're
expecting out of them. And so that's another real check is if Ancestry does this and instead of
500,000 snips being called they have 250,000 sips being called and 250,000 that are no calls. That's
another red flag to them that hey this sample's got a problem with it. And so they're going
to email back to the person and say hey there's a problem with your sample. We couldn't process it
correctly. Can you send us another one? so there's all these little checks in the process that
with the way that Ancestry is set up make it very difficult to submit a sample unethically.
Now does that mean that it can't happen? no that doesn't mean that it can't happen. It could
and then we get to really the next part I think and this is one of the most important parts. If
and this is an if. If an unethical law enforcement personnel submitted this sample to
Ancestry in violation of not only their policies but potentially in some jurisdictions in violation
of the law and they solved the case from it. I pretty much believe that eventually,
it's going to come out that this is what they did. Why do I say that? well initially with the
Golden State Killer it was a breakthrough. And they identified this and they didn't identify
necessarily companies by name initially but because of the information you pretty much knew
that it was GEDmatche. The major database that they had used at that point people were okay
knowing. Now when I say okay let's do that at that point people assume that GEDmatch was the
only one that was used and it wasn't until a year, year and a half, maybe 2 years later that it came
out that they'd also used MyHeritage. Again both of these websites allow the upload of that DNA
digital file. Even though MyHeritage was used as part of these law enforcement cases certificates.
Not necessarily with MyHeritage's knowledge, it did come out in the press eventually. And so
with Ancestry DNA. If again if law enforcement was able to jump through all these hurdles to get
a good clean sample that they could use after they solved the case with just the publicity
I think it would come out. Now it may not come out immediately but it would come out eventually and
that would be a bad thing for law enforcement because while early on with the Golden State
killer and some of these other early ones most of the companies were were not clear as far as
their policies and how they wanted DNA to be used. And there weren't really any laws in
place governing. This since that time Ancestry and MyHeritage have taken very firm stances and very
public firm stances that they do not want their DNA databases or their databases, in general,
to be used for these purposes that they don't allow it. That if they find it they're going to
delete that information that they're not going to cooperate with law enforcement in any way without
them going through proper legal channels. So that's why I say if law enforcement did this
with some unethical conduct and possibly illegal conduct in many jurisdictions eventually that
is going to come out. And that would hinder law enforcement's ability to do some of this research
in the future. In other words yeah you may be able to solve one case possibly two or three as
everything's still under the radar. But once it all came out there would be more scrutiny
and more controls put in place that would lock this down completely. So do I think that
any law enforcement has used Ancestry DNA up to this point to solve a case. No I don't think so.
Again there are several different hoops that they have to jump through in order to even
get into the Ancestry database. And now because of all the publicity, I don't think it would be
a risk that most law enforcement agencies would be willing to take. So saying that
Ancestry DNA has put a policy in place of not allowing law enforcement to be able to use their
database. But because of Ancestry's policies as well it would make it very difficult. Now
if you would like to learn more about DNA and law enforcement you can watch this video up here. If
you'd like to learn about something else with DNA then why don't you watch this video down below.