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Comment by jandrewrogers | Hacker News Reader

The blood sample isn’t a DNA sample right up until the point they decide to sequence it. This is the same legal doctrine allowing the government to systematically collect all of your personal data without violating your privacy as long they don’t look at what they collect without a warrant.

The government has granted themselves an option on your personal data that can’t be revoked.

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I agree with you in principle. And I agree that the government has been steadily eroding our privacy. And I agree that California probably shouldn't be retaining these samples forever.

However, the likelihood of being able to "sequence" the biomatter on a blood spot is quite low, and the probability of getting good signal out of it continues to go down over time. It'll still remain useful for various kinds of spot testing and genetic disease testing, but it's not going to produce a fully validated genomic sequence or even be that useful for forensic purposes.

This isn't some sort of sealed blood vial, it's literally just blood on paper.

This is wrong, the sample efficiency of DNA collection, amplification and sequencing technology has gone way up, to the extent that for example bubonic plague could be identified from DNA samples in the dental plaque of skulls which are multiple centuries old.

Also your statement directly conflicts with the purported confirmed utility of law enforcement getting warrants to use said samples.

You don't think that it's easier to identify whether something is bubonic plague than it would be to identify whether two DNA samples are related? Especially when one of them is aged such that it's not even a whole sequence anymore?

Yes, our ability to manipulate and read DNA has increased significantly in the past 40 years. But you can't create data from something that isn't there or has been corrupted beyond recovery.

And as far as the efficacy of police goes, I don't think that a warrant is sufficient to prove that there's confirmed utility in getting these samples.

I agree but the State has already the monopoly on violence, which is something that only the State has. If they have a warrant, they can also break into your private property and you have to accept it. This is not too dissimilar.

They can arrest you (with a warrant) and take your DNA whenever they want so I don't see what your point is.

They don’t need to arrest you to obtain your DNA, which is the entire point. They don’t need to arrest you to use your DNA, previously collected, to identify a family member.

The government has my biometrics. Most people should assume, by default, that the government has theirs as well.

Then they don't need to recollect it for "any applicant, petitioner, sponsor, supporter, derivative, dependent, beneficiary, or individual filing or associated with a benefit request or other request or collection of information, including U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals and lawful permanent residents, and without regard to age"

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