Protecting the genetic privacy of folks that help solve crimes or identify human remains, is of the utmost importance to Othram, the world’s first private DNA laboratory built specifically to apply the power of modern parallel sequencing to forensic evidence.
Othram, founded in 2018 and located in The Woodlands, consists of scientists that are experts at recovery, enrichment, and analysis of human DNA from trace quantities of degraded or contaminated materials. The team works with academic researchers, forensic scientists, medical examiners, and law enforcement agencies to achieve results when other approaches fail.
Investigative leads are not generated by traditional forensic DNA testing, if the source of the forensic evidence or a 1st degree relative of unidentified human remains is not in the DNA database. In such cases, forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) can provide valuable leads. However, FGG generated genetic data contain private and sensitive information. Therefore, it is essential to deploy approaches that minimize unnecessary disclosure of these data to mitigate potential risks to individual privacy.
We recommend protective practices that need not impact effective reporting of relationship identifications. Examples include performing one-to-one comparisons of DNA profiles of third-party samples and evidence samples offline with an “air gap” to the internet and shielding the specific shared single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) states and locations by binning adjacent SNPs in forensic reports. Such approaches reduce risk of unwanted access to or reverse engineering of third-party individuals’ genetic data and can give these donors greater confidence to support use of their DNA profiles in FGG investigation.
The paper Prioritizing privacy and presentation of supportable hypothesis testing in forensic genetic genealogy investigations illustrates measures that can be implemented to protect genomic data derived from reference testing of third-party individuals during a forensic genetic genealogy investigation.
