No one has been a stronger, more willing advocate of GEDmatch.com than I have been over these past several years. I believe in the ideals of sharing and cooperation that brought that website into existence. It seemed like a win-win for all. Buy one DNA test, then share your results with other genealogists who tested at other companies? It's like buying all the DNA tests for the price of one!
And let's not forget that GEDmatch exists to fill a market gap, which AncestryDNA created purposefully by refusing to provide full segment data to its users. In many respects, I wouldn't need GEDmatch if AncestryDNA would provide the same amount of information between its users that every other testing company does. It's the single biggest dependence on GEDmatch that I currently experience as a user of that site.
Because of how much I've encouraged people to use GEDmatch in the past, I would be remiss if I didn't dive into the changing landscape of DNA testing and GEDmatch's place in it. I never thought I would have to say this, but it's time for every person who uses GEDmatch to reconsider their presence on that website because of the problematic, invisible relationship it currently has with law enforcement.
You may have seen cases in the news related to the Golden State Killer, and
the role that GEDmatch played in the solving of that case. I was alarmed the moment I heard that story. I have been watching for how the situation would play out, to see if that case would somehow exist in isolation. I wasn't ready to consider losing one of the most important tools I use for genetic genealogy. I had naive hopes that the situation wouldn't progress beyond that point, and everything could go back to the way it was before.
Except it hasn't. And I see now that it won't. Several more cases have been solved by using crime scene DNA, in comparison with DNA submitted by hobbyist genealogists from all over the world to GEDmatch. And I personally don't understand why more people aren't deeply troubled by this situation. There are so many legal, moral, and ethical issues in that one sentence alone. I'm no legal expert, so I can't pretend I have all/the best/the right answers.
But I'm a concerned person with questions, a conscience, and Constitutional rights. So that's what I want to explore today.
Transparency
The first issue I see in this situation is one of transparency--both on the part of the law enforcement community and the genealogists who represent them. Just roaming around on GEDmatch (like you do), you can't tell who could be a law enforcement agent and who isn't. You can't tell who their representatives are. There's no system in place that allows them to identify themselves. That's the entire point of cops carrying badges--so people can properly identify them, their jurisdiction, and their activities as being official uses of tax dollars and community resources, and to report them if there's a problem.
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"Why should they identify themselves
if they're not police?"
If you think that's never going to change,
I
have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell to you. |
Instead, investigators have hired professional genealogists like CeCe Moore through Parabon, a consulting agency who specializes in forensics. This changes the legality of what is being gathered and used by law enforcement, since the agents themselves are not the ones gathering and interpreting information from the database.
No court order or warrant is needed.
And that may be completely legal in the sight of the law. But there is still something to be said for a certified, professional genealogist using the research and samples of others in a criminal investigation--without directly asking for and receiving informed, written consent BEFORE their information is used.
Before a professional genealogist hired by law enforcement ever puts my kit number into a One-to-One analysis with a known rapist/serial killer, I want my name on a signed legal document saying I gave them permission to use my data in that way. Before you submit my tree and a positive connection to my DNA sample as evidence in a criminal investigation, let alone a criminal trial, I deserve the ability to give or revoke my consent from you. I deserve a say in what your choice could do to my name, my family, and the way my work and identity becomes part of that case in the public record.
For those appealing to the GEDmatch Terms and Conditions in this situation, let me be perfectly clear and upfront with you: I don't care what the GEDmatch Terms and Conditions say. Especially since the Terms and Conditions exist to establish legal permissions and consent between me and GEDmatch, not me and the rest of the world who shows up there.The Terms and Conditions on that website do not invalidate my personal legal rights in the state and country where I live.
Legal behavior is not the same thing as moral and ethical behavior.
Professional genealogy, like the professionals in any other industry,
have ethical standards they agreed to abide by when they were certified.
And if those ethical standards don't reflect how a genealogist should
behave in their relationships with law enforcement, perhaps it's time
for those ethical standards to be reexamined and expanded.
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Note: Jeff Goldblum is one of only a handful of people who doesn't end up eaten by dinosaurs in this scenario.
Always listen to Jeff Goldblum. |
Hobbyists as the Legally Admissible
In the realms of "genetic genealogy," there still are no certified professionals or a certifying body to speak of. While there are certifying boards for traditional genealogists, there is no such equivalent for genetic genealogy. It's a new frontier to all of us, which I don't think enough of the general public understands. We're all still figuring out what that means and what it should look like, especially as we are catapulted into the future by the popularity of commercial DNA testing by the masses.
GEDmatch wasn't created by "professionals." It was created by hobbyists, for hobbyists. Curtis Rogers is a businessman from Florida, and John Olson is an engineer from Texas. Neither one of them is a professional genealogist, from what I can tell. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about this and I will correct it in the post.) It was only very recently that GEDmatch even started taking money for their services. And I question any judge who, being familiar with the age and operational history of this website, would allow their matches and services to be considered legally admissible in court.
GEDmatch's creators being hobbyists DOES matter. Being hobbyists is going to be reflected in the operation they run. It's going to be reflected in the security of the platform, the quality and reliability of the matches being produced, and the administrative decisions being made on behalf of their users. And it matters that we examine each of these now that GEDmatch is becoming a tool to find and catch criminals.
Is the GEDmatch database secure enough not to be manipulated by outside attackers, who may want to manipulate or change the data in the system to misrepresent relationships between people? I don't know the answer to that question. But I don't think law enforcement officers do either.
With that question comes another that is very closely related, regarding professional standards of identification and accuracy. Just because a website links two people together and says they're related doesn't make it true. Likewise, just because it says they're not related doesn't make it true. What is the foundation, the reliability of those claims? Because you can't point to any formal qualification that the founders at GEDmatch have for two reasons--because they either don't have them, or that information isn't available for consideration. Their personal information and backgrounds are not posted anywhere on GEDmatch that I can find. (Someone please advise me if this is incorrect or if it changes, and I'll change the post to reflect it.) According to his Facebook profile, Curtis Rogers received his MS/MBA from either Denison University, Michigan State, or Berry University. I can find only credit mentions to John Olson for utilities that he implemented into the website.
In terms of exploring who else may be on the GEDmatch team, I've found two additional names: John Hayward and Blaine Bettinger.
John Hayward has answered support questions to users, which suggests he has administrative capacities on the website and can make changes to its matching operations. Blaine Bettinger is a professional genealogist with a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and is
affiliated with GEDmatch in what has been described as a legal capacity. To what extent he consults or provides any additional expertise to GEDmatch is not something I can comment on, because I don't know the answer.
And to be clear, I'm not trying to accuse the GEDmatch team or any individual person on it of being guilty of some kind of oversight or negligence, or being untrustworthy in any way. How can I, when I don't even know who they are, and I've had to search through news articles and forum posts to find what little information I now possess? But I think pointing out this lack of transparency is important, in the event that legal action becomes necessary for users who may be injured in some way by using this site. It may be legal for the team at GEDmatch to conceal their identities from the website, thereby making it difficult to hold them accountable for potential oversight or negligence on their part. But is it an ethical thing to do?
Just this week, I came across
an example of a woman whose brother was given the same GEDmatch kit number as another user on GEDmatch. She thought she had a niece she knew nothing about, when in reality the GEDmatch website was presenting match information to her that simply wasn't accurate. It led her to confront her family with false allegations regarding the paternity of this woman, based entirely on a relationship presented to her by GEDmatch. Fortunately, the error was "immediately" corrected by GEDmatch, according to the woman involved.
While no website is completely free from human error 100% of the time, how often do these errors happen on GEDmatch? Does anyone actually know? Do the people behind the scenes at GEDmatch know? What is their turnaround time on mistakes like these? Do they have systems in place to find and correct them? And does this administrative error overlap with certain minority populations--like Jewish and African populations--being more susceptible to Identical by State (IBS) false positives?
I'm not saying any of this has happened in the criminal cases being worked by the genealogists on the Parabon consulting team. I can't possibly know that. I do know that certified professional genealogists are well-trained, and their work deserves respect. They are qualified to be legal experts in the tracing and documenting of familial relationships. And I trust the professional genealogists in this community to recognize and work around the weaknesses of tools like GEDmatch to the best of their abilities.
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If we learn nothing else from Karen Keegan and
Lydia Fairchild, it should be that DNA doesn't lie...
But we don't always understand the story it's telling us either. |
But genealogists, professional or otherwise, simply cannot account for all the errors in the tools they use. Those errors exist on every platform, to varying degrees and for a variety of reasons. And to be honest, I don't trust law enforcement agents, legal professionals, juries, and the general public to understand those limitations with enough nuance
to prevent people from being falsely accused, based on what a DNA match on the internet allegedly says.
Before more cases are subjected to the matching abilities of commercial websites (and third-party websites like GEDmatch), there needs to be a unified standard for DNA matching, and for the consistent performance of algorithms to make positive, accurate matches without false positives. There need to be policies and protections in place to consider and recognize when DNA is not foolproof. We need a greater cultural awareness beyond the familiar adage that "DNA doesn't lie."
If we learn nothing else from Karen Keegan and Lydia Fairchild, it should be that DNA doesn't lie. But we don't always understand the story it's telling us either.
I would trust the technology from GEDmatch to tell me my mother has a half brother we had no idea existed. I would trust it to help me find and identify the birth fathers of my grandmothers. I have/would trust it to back up genealogical claims in low-stakes situations that few, if any other people outside of my own family are ever going to care about or be affected by.
But I wouldn't stake my life on GEDmatch, or the life and death of another human being on it--as will no doubt be the case in some of these trials. And I defy anyone who has used GEDmatch when more than 400 people are on it at the same time to tell me they would trust a human life to any assertion made by
that website.
I expect inconsistent performance, and even mistakes, from a website I know is run by volunteers--who created this website as a service to help bring hobbyists together to do genealogy. I don't expect it from a website whose performance is going to be treated as legally admissible in a court of law for a criminal murder trial. GEDmatch may have access to a wide variety of user-submitted data from multiple testing companies. But should they be on the same legal footing with those testing companies, who have more resources and employees to guarantee consistent results in presenting reliable, accurate claims about relationships between people?
What qualifies GEDmatch, their founders and their current team as presently constituted, to occupy that position in someone else's criminal trial?
You'd think with me asking these kinds of questions, I want to see murders and rapists go free. I want exactly the opposite of that. I want the right person, who is guilty of the crime of which they stand accused, to be convicted and sentenced to a punishment that fits their crime. I want the law enforcement officers in charge of those investigations to use legal, ethical means to gather information and vet suspects in their investigation. I want eyes on the future in terms of dangerous legal precedents that could lift up a system that is too quick and hasty to judge the falsely accused. I want fairness and justice under the law for everyone. And I'm speaking up because I fear we're on the cusp of creating an international situation that is not in keeping with those values.
If we've learned nothing from #MeToo stories, can we please acknowledge how notoriously difficult it is to convict a rapist? Any weakness in the defenses and the bastard walks free. I'm not saying all of this because I want that to happen. I'm saying this because I think it will. It inevitably will if part of the foundation of evidence can not stand up in court due to it being declared inadmissible. (If you're interested in reading more about the
admissibility of DNA evidence in court and all the powers that will be
at play in these trials, I recommend reading
this and
this.) Inadmissible evidence is how criminal cases fall apart, and families who thought they were going to receive justice for unspeakable violence do not get it.
I'm saying all of this because I know how that feels. I know how it feels to watch a man who deserves to be punished walk free when he should be in prison. I know the games that lawyers play with evidence. I couldn't bear to see that happen, and to see GEDmatch at the center of it. As genealogists and as citizens, regardless of where we live, we all deserve better than this.
And if the legal precedents that are already being established by these cases don't disturb you, it's because you're not thinking concretely enough about the future they could lead to.
Civil and Constitutional Rights
Imagine a world where law enforcement agencies want a universal DNA database of all citizens, for the purpose of criminal investigations. Imagine if they had to publicly petition for the existence of that database. Imagine if they had to go to the legislators in their respective communities and countries, to publicly justify the existence of such an assemblage of human data.
Imagine the outrage people would have to that request. Imagine the legal and ethical conversations we would be having about many of the points I've already raised. Who should keep such a database? Who would maintain it? Who would keep it secure? Who would have jurisdiction over it? Who could access it? What kinds of legal permission would they need? How does using such a database violate or co-exist with (in the US) our 4th amendment due process rights, and our legal protections against "unreasonable searches and seisures"?
"It'll never happen," I've heard people say already. The sheer scope of the obstacles to be overcome is what they always appeal to. No one in their right minds would trust law enforcement agents to respect those rights when they have unrestricted access to DNA. Why bother with warrants when you could just pop a DNA sample into a computer and know exactly who it belongs to? The people who have no problem with this picture tell themselves, "if the person is guilty, why does it matter?"
Because when law enforcement agents do this, it's not just a justified search for one person. It's a warrantless, undocumented search against everyone else in the database. Everyone in that database is a suspect, over and over again, until the DNA says they're not. There is no presumption of innocence. There is no consent. There is no accountability to how and why that system might be manipulated--either from without or within--to make the database reflect whatever anyone with access to it wants it to say.
By allowing law enforcement agents to use GEDmatch to solve cold cases, we are one step closer to living in this reality. The genetic genealogists involved in researching these cases are on the front lines of giving away a DNA database that isn't subject to warrants and court orders. It's a threat to our rights against "unreasonable search and seizures." And that behavior is being normalized at the expense of users, many of whom are from an older generation who is deeply uncomfortable with technology. They may not understand the legal consent they are giving by participating in GEDmatch, or even the very act of when they gave consent by clicking on a check box.
Their consent may be legal, but in many cases it is not informed. It cannot be considered ethical. And it angers me to know that if many GEDmatch users truly understood the situation they were in, the future they are helping to create, they would likely want to remove themselves from GEDmatch. And they may not even have the necessary technological understanding to remove their information from the website, thereby revoking their consent.
The entire reason for reading or reciting a person's rights at the time of arrest is so they understand the boundaries of their relationship with law enforcement agents. We do this because we care about people being able to make informed decisions about their conduct in relation to police and their investigations. But being informed in this way isn't just necessary for those accused of crimes. It matters to everyone, including witnesses or assistants to any kind of formal investigation by law enforcement.
We deserve to have our rights explained to us in any interaction with police. How can we expect that when the officers involved in these investigations never show their faces to us, don't identify themselves, never speak to us directly, and use intermediaries that purposefully circumvent our legal protections under the law?
If you're okay with assisting law enforcement in the United States with their cold cases and criminal investigations, feel free to stay on GEDmatch and not take any additional action.
For the rest of us, we need to understand, in no uncertain terms:
By participating in GEDmatch, you agree to let anyone with access to the website use your public DNA match results in whatever way they want. GEDmatch is not going to attempt to limit, stop, or control the behavior of their users--even if that behavior is unethical, immoral, or in violation of your legal rights. They have absolved themselves of any and all responsibility for how the data on their website is being used, or may be used. They will not legally defend or protect you as a user. Your presence there is your sole legal responsibility.
If you are a citizen in a country outside the United States, and you upload your results publicly to GEDmatch, you give consent for them to be used in an untold number of criminal investigations--outside of the local and national jurisdictions where you live. Even if you are not a positive match to someone accused of a crime, your results are going to be used by an algorithm to narrow down the people who are. And if convicted, those who are accused will likely receive the death penalty or life sentences in prison, regardless of your personal or ethical feelings on those forms of punishment.
I've already changed my relationship with GEDmatch in response to this situation, and I will be doing follow-up posts to help you understand your options going forward.
If GEDmatch is going to let anyone in through an unguarded revolving door and leave with anything they want, it's not a safe place for its users to save money on additional DNA testing anymore.
And now I'm beginning to wonder if it ever was.
