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Comment by mikeryan | Hacker News Reader

To be fair to the parties involved the SF DA at the time refused to prosecute the case, the SFPD stopped the practice pretty much immediately, and the date of California is passing legislation to prevent this. Everyone seems to have acknowledged that this was wrong and have seemed to put in efforts to stop it.

It’s an interesting federal case for how it can impact other states law and raises the awareness of other “rogue” DNA databases that could be misused.

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No. SFPD only stopped the practice (of reporting rape kit matches) after SF DA refused to prosecute this one particular case and it came to light that SFPD was actually doing this. Considering SFPD routinely checked DNA against rape kits for over 7 years, it's possible this was used in other cases.

"Boudin read the police department’s lab report, which said that “during a routine search of the SFPD Crime Lab Forensic Biology Unit Internal Quality Database, a match was detected and verified. Direct comparisons with the samples listed below were performed,” listing the 2016 rape kit sample.

The language suggested that the practice was routine and not an isolated incident, Boudin said, and the head of the crime lab confirmed to his office that such searches are done regularly." [1]

"The scope of how many victims or volunteers may have had their DNA queried by the department's crime lab and matched to unknown suspect DNA to solve a criminal case over the last seven years is unknown." ... "other California DAs told [Boudin] that their crime labs have also admitted to maintaining a database that includes DNA profiles from sexual assault survivors." [2]

So I don't think it's fair to claim "SFPD stopped the practice pretty much immediately" and "Everyone seems to have acknowledged that this was wrong" when clearly the SFPD and possibly other PDs have been doing this for years.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/14/san-francis... 2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/02/23/san-fr...

Here's a 2019 California appeal decision that on the most simple face of it would have invalidated convictions based on non consenting collection of DNA. In this particular case the appellant unfortunately for his fortune subsequently voluntarily provided DNA samples. Whether this could theoretically be overturned on lawful search grounds for procedure and investigation leading to arrest is my speculative question.

California v. Marquez:

https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2019...

it is utterly naive to accept such statements at face value ; deception is a daily tool in politics and in court

Sure, but they aren't just statements. Sooner or later, in the face of mounting evidence, you have to put aside your cynicism and admit that sometimes people do things that they say they will do.

Yeah but so is incompetence…

I think everybody is going to be super cool about this while they find out who set things up to record victim DNA. It's a nice little powder keg that's been just sitting there for a while.

It might make some practical sense to have a system that keeps some record of victim DNA. During an investigation and analysis of a sample, victim DNA can be used to rule out sources of unique DNA. It makes yet more sense to sequester victim DNA into another database and have a policy to destroy the data once it's no longer necessary.

There is of course no reasonable expectation that any other PD will take the hint and follow suit.

There's also the issue that the more justice-minded SF DA was recently kicked out and an aggressive pro-police DA installed.

You call allowing rampant looting / shoplifting "justice minded"?

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