Social and Ethical Issues in the Use of Familial Searching in Forensic Investigations: Insights from Family and Kinship Studies

Abstract

Since its origins in the mid-1980s, DNA profiling has become the most powerful tool for identification in contemporary society. Practitioners have deployed it to determine parentage, verify claims to identity in various civil contexts, identify bodies in wars and mass disasters, and infer the identity of individuals who have left biological traces at crime scenes. Thus DNA profiling can be used to implicate or exonerate individuals from participation in particular social relations and activities; this affords it a growing importance in major social institutions such as the family, the criminal justice system, immigration services, and health services. There are key state, security, civil liberty, personal, and commercial considerations surrounding the reliability and social implications of DNA profiling in establishing the identities of “family members,” “claimants,” “customers,” “suspects,” and “citizens.” Given that DNA profiling is increasingly influential in forensic inquiries, the recently-developed practice in the UK of “familial searching” of DNA databases has the potential to become a significant aspect of investigations.