Scope of Databases
The United States maintains the largest DNA database in the world, with the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) holding over 9 million records as of 2011. The United Kingdom maintains the National DNA Database (NDNAD), which is of similar size. The size of this database, and its rate of growth, is giving concern to civil liberties and political groups in the UK, where police have wide-ranging powers to take samples and retain them even in the event of acquittal.
When a match is made from a national DNA database to link a crime scene to an offender who has provided a DNA sample to a database that link is often referred to as a cold hit. A cold hit is of value in referring the police agency to a specific suspect but is of less evidential value than a DNA match made from outside the DNA database.
As of March 2011, 361,176 forensic profiles and 9,404,747 offender profiles have been accumulated, making it the largest DNA database in the world. As of the same date, CODIS has produced over 138,700 matches to requests, assisting in more than 133,400 investigations. The United Kingdom National DNA Database consisted of an estimated number 5,512,776 profiles of individuals as of March 2011.
The growing public approval of DNA databases has seen the creation and expansion of many states' own DNA databases. California currently maintains the third largest DNA database in the world (naturally, as CODIS contains all states' database information). Political measures such as California Proposition 69 (2004), which increased the scope of the DNA database, have already met with a significant increase in numbers of investigations aided.
In order to decrease the number of irrelevant matches at NDIS, the Convicted Offender Index requires all 13 CODIS STRs to be present for a profile upload. Forensic profiles only require 10 of the STRs to be present for an upload.
The application of DNA databases have been expanded into two controversial areas: arrestees and familial searching. An arrestee is a person arrested for a crime and who has not yet been convicted for that offense. Currently, 21 states have passed legislation that allows law enforcement to take DNA from an arrestee and enter it into the state's CODIS DNA database to see if that person has a criminal record or can be linked to any unsolved crimes. In familial searching, the DNA database is used to look for partial matches that would be expected between close family members. This technology can be used to link crimes to the family members of suspects and thereby help identify a suspect when the perpetrator has no DNA sample in the database.
Read more about this topic: National DNA Database
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“Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more, and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.”
—Gail Hamilton (1833–1896)