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Retention of Offender DNA Samples Necessary to Ensure and Monitor Quality of Forensic DNA Efforts: Appropriate Safeguards Exist to Protect the DNA Samples from Misuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

M. Dawn Herkenham
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Extract

The topic of offender DNA databases and the retention of offender's DNA samples are issues that continue to generate debate between privacy advocates and forensic DNA scientists. Considered previously by both the Federal DNA Advisory Board and the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence, recommendations were made that the existing statutory frameworks were sufficient to protect the confidentiality and use of the DNA samples solely for forensic identification purposes and that the issue be revisited. Now, approximately five years since these debates, privacy advocates and forensic scientists retain divergent views on this issue. This brief essay is not intended to fuel the debate, but rather, to describe the protections and safeguards currently in place for the protection of the offender DNA samples.

Surrounding the discussion of the sample retention issue are the underlying principles for the establishment of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) Program and the National DNA Index System (NDIS).

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Summer 2006 , pp. 380 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

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