WEBVTT - Update: How Your DNA Test Could Solve a Murder 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.360 Hey, everyone is Zaki. Today we're re airing one of 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.880 my favorite episodes from last year. It's about a woman 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.119 called c. C. Moore who's helping the police self homicide 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:15.159 cases using these databases of consumer DNA test results. A 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.760 lot has happened since then, so keep listening till the end, 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.760 when reporter Christen Brown will update us on the recent 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.520 developments and warning that the story includes some graphic descriptions 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:37.000 of a crime scene. Okay, here's the episode. In the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:41.160 fall of seven, Tanya van Kileenberg and j Cook took 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.440 a ferry from their home in British Columbia to Washington State. 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.000 They were planning to run an errand the next morning 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:52.159 for Jay's father. A few days later, Tanya's body was 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.440 found in a ditch seventy miles north of Seattle. She's 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.160 been raped with her hands bound behind her, and there 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.360 was a bullet your head. Two days later, hunters found 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.080 j under a bridge one county over. He had been 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.840 strangled with a dog collar. A pack of cigarettes was 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.520 stuffed in his mouth. Police had a theory. They suspected 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.600 the couple had met the killer on the ferry and 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.959 offered him a ride, but the leads ran out and 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:24.039 the case went cold until a few months ago. Good morning, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.960 and thank you all for being here. Yesterday we took 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.840 into custody of fifty five year old sea technic who 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.680 was suspected of the murders of jacob In Tanya and 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:39.240 Kylie Burke. William Earld Tabot the second has been booked 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.479 into Snowman County Jail on one count of first degree 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:49.880 murder on a war. Thirty one years after the murder, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.800 police finally arrested a suspect. A woman named Cecy Moore 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.440 helped crack the case using a new and controversial technology. 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.680 At the time, CECI was known for solving the mysteries 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:16.280 of people's family histories. Today, c s hunt serial killers. Hi, 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.959 I'm Pia Gadkari and I'm Kristin Brown. And this week 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.040 on Decrypted, we're exploring the unintended consequences of consumer DNA tests. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.639 These services are booming, with millions of people sending their 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.800 spit into companies like Ancestry and three met. They promised 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.959 to unite people with long lost family members, detect risk 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.919 of disease, and even suggests personalized dieting regimens, but critics 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.160 fear that our DNA could come to be used in 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:48.040 ways that would compromise our privacy and even potentially land 0:02:48.120 --> 0:03:01.200 someone we're related to in jail. Stay with us, Okay. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.480 It was a classically cold and gray Pacific Northwest day 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.160 when I picked CC More up at our hotel about 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.280 an hour and a half outside Seattle. Hey, do you 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.440 want to put that in the trunk? Yeah? There were 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.519 just a few miles from More the murder of Tanya 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.280 van Kilemberg and Jay Cook took place. So I was 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.720 just gonna say, I was just realizing this morning that 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.080 this We're in the county right now where you solved 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:33.320 your first case, right are we in Snahomas Cool? I 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.080 saw a sign that said this way, and I was 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.960 was going to ask somebody. Yeah, I realized Cecy was 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.520 here in rural Washington state to do what she has 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.200 done for years, help people piece together their family histories. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.560 She was speaking at the annual Northwest Genealogical Conference. The 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.320 day before, I had watched her give a very technical 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.160 talk about how to triangulate DNA relatives to fill stubborn 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.480 gaps and genealogies. Afterward, about two dozen people rushed the 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.040 stage to talk to her. One person, apparently a distant cousin, 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.440 even asked her to pose for a picture. In this world, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.080 Cecy Moore is a star, but she fell into it 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.400 by accident because until about twenty years ago, Cecy was 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.360 an actress. Once she told me she had a gig 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.599 where she had to pretend to be a barbeam. She 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.080 had come to our copy date joining a suitcase with 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.240 multiple outfit options for the big banquet keynote she was 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.600 giving later at the local country club. Because it wasn't 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:33.239 acting that made CC famous, it was genealogy. About twenty 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.760 years ago, my niece was getting married and I was 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.240 trying to think of a good wedding gift, and I thought, oh, 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.880 a family tree would be a cool wedding gift. I 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.520 think I'll try to put one together for her, and 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.839 got online and found ancestry dot com and started trying 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:55.360 to figure that out and became obsessed with in genealogy. 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.840 Genealogists are like detectives, but for the family tree, they 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.200 used things like Mary Dge records and obituaries to piece 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.640 together how people are related, and these days some of them, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.920 like Ceci, also used DNA. Cecy made her mark using 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.240 DNA to crack tough to solve mysteries like tracking down 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.520 the birth parents of adopted children. Then Ceci's life took 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.240 a turn. In April, police arrested a suspect in the 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.080 long cold case of the Golden State Killer, a notorious 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.440 serial killer who terrorized California in the nineteen seventies and eighties. 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.159 Huge break in a cold case terrorizing California for decades, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.640 police say they now have a Golden State Killer in custody. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.080 Joseph de'angelo is facing new charges this morning, four counts 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.080 of murder in Santa Barbara, twelve murder charges now in all. 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.599 Cecie was gearing up for attack at the genetic testing 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.520 company twenty three and me when news of the arrest happened. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.880 I woke up in a hotel room in Mountain View 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.760 and saw the headline that the Golden State Killer had 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:04.240 been rested, and I knew immediately that it was through 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.280 genetic genealogy techniques. It didn't come out immediately, but I 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.719 knew that in the case of the Golden State Killer, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.559 law enforcement had used a genealogy website called jet match 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.760 to find their suspect. Jet Match is sort of like 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:24.280 a big community repository for DNA data. For example, I 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.840 could upload my data from say twenty three and me 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.640 and find out whether I might be related to someone 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.320 else who uploaded data from a different service like ancestry. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.800 What police did in this case is they uploaded data 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.760 from crime scene DNA and then looked for potential suspects 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.120 in the family trees of other people who showed up 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.680 as a genetic match, in other words, people who shared 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:52.680 the killer's DNA. We've reunited tens of thousands of people 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.919 with long lost family members, and it's exactly the same technique. 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.400 So if we can do it there for adoptees, there's 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.200 absolutely no reason we can't do it in these law 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.320 enforcement cases as well. In the past, Cecy had been 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.960 hesitant to go snooping through people's profiles for a purpose 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.560 they'd never intended, but once the Golden State killer case 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.960 was splashed across the headlines, she figured it was open season. 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.560 I didn't want to do this until people knew that 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.120 it was possible and that it was happening that their 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:31.720 DNA could be used for this purpose. CC's work is 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.119 possible in part because of a small software company called 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.200 Parabond Nano Labs. A few years ago, Parabond created a 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.600 program called Snapshot that can use crime scene DNA to 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.000 do basically what a sketch artist does. It creates a 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.800 vague picture of what a suspect might look like. It 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.560 does this by processing crime scene DNA with the same 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.320 kind of technology that companies like twenty three and Me 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.880 and Ancestry use in the world of law enforcement. This 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.720 hadn't really been done before I actually visited Parabon along 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.280 with Business Week reporter Drake Bennett. Their technique provides a 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.440 lot more data than crime scene labs usually work with. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.760 One standard test, for example, looks at just twenty three 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.160 markers on the Y chromosome. Markers are unique places on 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.200 a person's genome, but Parabon looks at thousands of markers, 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.440 and more data means you can get a lot more 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.960 detail about what your suspect might be like and compare 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.800 that data to the consumer DNA tests that millions of 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.679 people are doing right now. And that's where CC comes in. 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.920 The data that Parabond generates to create its DNA sketches 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.160 is similar to the data people upload to sites like 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.920 jet match when they're looking for relatives. Last year, cec 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.680 reached out to Parabon to see if they could work together, 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.880 and eventually the company hired her to head up a 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.120 new unit devoted to forensic genetic genealogy. One of the 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.120 first cases to come in was from Snowhomish County in 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.040 Washington State. It was the case of j Cook and 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.520 Tanya van Kuilemberg that we heard about at the start, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.360 and it was right after the Golden State killer arrest, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.320 so there was a lot of enthusiasm from law enforcement 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.360 around the country about using this same technique. Cecie got 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.080 to work and I kept waiting for matches to populate, 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.400 but they didn't populate. That Friday night, I went to 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.800 sleep and I woke up Saturday morning to a list 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.640 of DNA matches on JED match. She got really lucky. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.719 There In the list of matches was the geneological equivalent 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.280 of winning the lottery. Two cousins who shared a lot 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.760 of DNA with the suspect, but who didn't seem to 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.120 be related to each other. So imagine a cousin on 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.880 your dad's side of the family and another cousin on 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.920 your mom's side of the family. Those two cousins aren't 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.360 related to each other, but they are related to you, 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.440 So that tells me I should be able to find 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.120 a triangulation between them, meaning a place where those two 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.199 family trees come together. From there, Cecie turned to all 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.680 the traditional tools of genealogy to build a family tree 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.199 for each of the people who showed up as a match. 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.640 That meant searching through Facebook, newspaper archives, and local records 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.440 to figure out who else these people were related to. 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.720 Since the two cousins of the suspect weren't related to 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.520 each other, ceci knew that somewhere there had to be 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.000 a marriage between the two families. Eventually, she found an 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.720 obituary for a woman from one family who was carrying 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.600 a last name from the other. Perhaps this was it, 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.880 Cecie told me. Marriage records are pretty good in Washington State, 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.400 so she was able to confirm that this was indeed 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.120 the marriage she'd been looking for. And this resulted in 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.680 four children, three of which were female, and so we 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:56.360 only had one male. That one male was the only 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:01.199 probable suspect. Within a few hours, cc found herself staring 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:05.680 at a name, William Earl Talbot. The second police collected 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.160 a new DNA sample from him and confirmed it matched 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:13.119 the DNA found at the crime scene. Then, on May seventeen, 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:17.280 police took William Earl Talbot into custody. Of course, he 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.960 hasn't been found guilty yet, but my work certainly points 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.640 right at him. William L. Talbot has been charged with 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.680 both murders, but he's pleaded not guilty. If he's convicted, 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:37.560 he could face the death penalty. The Snohomish case was 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.960 just the first murder case CCI tried to crack. To date, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.000 Parabon and CC have solved more than a dozen cases, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.040 and they have dozens more in the works. Parabon has 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.640 added three other full time genealogists to its staff, with 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.840 CC heading up that team. But when people ship their 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.560 DNA after me or ancestry to find out whether they're 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.200 Italian or what their g say about their taste for cilantro, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.479 they probably don't imagine it being used for a criminal investigation. 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.720 The Golden State killer case bren already bubbling conversation about 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:17.319 DNA and privacy to a boil. When you send your 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.680 saliva off to a DNA testing company, you're handing over 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:26.160 extremely sensitive, extremely personal information, not just about yourself, but 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:31.000 about other people you're related to. Consumer genetic testing companies. 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.360 So companies like Ancestry and twenty three and me don't 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.920 in general share data with law enforcement unless they're legally 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.400 compelled to. But that data gets shared in lots of 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:47.120 other ways. For example, DNA testing companies are already using 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.120 the data for research over time. There could be other 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.120 uses for that data too. For example, what if advertisers 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.520 one day used it to Taylor adds to you. What 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.559 if authorities used it not just to down serial killers 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.720 but petty criminals. I got into some of this with 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.319 Aaron Murphy. She's a law professor, and yu, I mean 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.800 the police. You were able to use DNA to determine 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.280 something that probably people in the world do not know, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.679 which is who is your six cousin? I mean, I 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.920 always say, now, I don't think people have fully internalized 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.040 that they may be the person who's the pivot. Aaron 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.840 thinks that if we fully grasped the scope of what 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.520 law enforcement could learn about any of us by using 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:35.599 these new DNA technologies, we'd be truly shocked. Sometimes I 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.040 say like, okay, we'll go on twenty three and me 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.160 and look at the list of things that they're going 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:41.839 to tell you about, and then tell me if you 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.320 want to march down to your local prestinct and give 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.440 that list of those things, so your sheariff with your 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.520 name and the answers to be clear. It is highly 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.440 unlikely that police would get hold of a whole vial 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.000 of saliva from a crime scene and send it into 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.560 a company like twenty three and me. Most of the 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.360 time there are just tiny bit of DNA left behind 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.360 at the scene of a crime. But the technology has 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.200 already advanced enough that these kinds of searchers are actually 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.480 possible through a pair bond nano labs and jet match, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.520 and your information could be exposed even if you don't 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.480 take one of these spit tests yourself. The key thing 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.200 here is that it doesn't have to be you, you know, 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:20.960 if they can find that information out through a relative 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.960 of yours, because we're looking at you know, enough snips 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:26.920 that we could make a prediction about what you look 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.160 like based on your relative or whether your family has 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.200 certain dispositions. Then the whole families could be cut off 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.960 because of one person's you know, cavalier approached to another 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.120 private day. There actually is a precedent for what police 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.120 can and cannot do when it comes to locating criminal 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.120 suspects through their relatives. Police can upload crime scene data 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.440 to a government criminal DNA database called CODIS to see 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.080 if there's a match to anyone else. One major concern, though, 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.160 with using CODIS in this way, is that the database 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.520 excuse towards people of color, meaning that searching it for 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:06.960 family matches just continues to disproportionately imprisoned minority populations. But 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.600 privacy is a concern too, so in California, for example, 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.200 police can only use codeis after they've exhausted all other 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.840 search tools. It's called familial search. But some states have 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.600 strict laws governing when police are allowed to use it, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.560 and at least one state has actually forbid it altogether. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.520 Those rules, though, only govern that federal database. Big open 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.480 platforms where people can voluntarily upload their data, services like 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.560 judd match are private. That means CC's investigations are not 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.080 subject to those same strict rules that apply to government 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.560 DNA databases. In fact, she's already solved one case that 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.040 didn't meet California's rules for familial search. It was a 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:55.440 three month old rape case in Utah, but CC is 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.680 wary of her powers. She worries, for one, about genealogists 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.080 who don't know what they're doing, leading police to the 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.560 wrong suspect. That's actually already sort of happened once a 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:11.120 few years back, using a slightly different technology. You know, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.600 I don't like the idea of this being the wild West, 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.520 where people that don't have any law enforcement experience are 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:22.120 out there offering services to law enforcement and there's no 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.000 quality control, you know, there's no checks and balances, And 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.920 I want to make sure that genetic genealogy is shown 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.240 in the best possible way through these cases with law 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:37.560 enforcement and if there aren't unnecessary missteps or negative outcomes. 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.000 But CC doesn't have the same concerns about people's privacy. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:44.800 She said it would be hard for jed match users 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.320 at this point to not know that she's creeping around 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.680 in there, and she thinks her work might prevent some 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:55.320 innocent people from being wrongly suspected. Now, yes, some innocent 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:00.120 family members are going to get pulled into investigations, but 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:05.040 it's going to eliminate dozens or hundreds, or sometimes even 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.760 thousands of innocent people that are completely unrelated to the 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:15.879 crime or the criminal being looked at. Okay, so, PA, 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.119 after hearing about all of this, I have to know, 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:25.080 have you ever taken a DNA test? You know? I haven't, 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.159 and I guess at some level it's because I was 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.600 always a little creeped out about it. But actually quite 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.000 a few of my relatives have done these tests, and 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.120 so I know I'm exposed. I just don't know how much. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.680 So there was actually a very interesting study that just 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:44.320 came out that answers that question. So this researcher from 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:49.200 Colombia and another DNA testing company called my Heritage found 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.320 that if you are an American of European descent, there 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.879 is a sixty percent chance that you have a relative 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.240 that has done a DNA test that could expose you. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.440 So basically, we're approaching all of us being exposed. And 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.760 that's basically what happened in the case of the Golden 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.439 State killer. He didn't actually take one of these DNA 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:13.159 tests himself, but obviously someone he's related to did, and 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.320 not just that, they then took the second step of 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:21.840 uploading their results to jet match, this open source community platform, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.639 and without that second step police would never have been 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.200 able to crack the case. I think when people take 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.200 these tests, even if they have, you know, maybe thought 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:35.600 about these consequences, it still seems unrealistic that anything really 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:40.160 bad would happen because of sharing their data. But actually, 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.640 you know, Aaron Murphy is one of the most cynical 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.199 people I've met when it comes to genetic privacy, and 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.640 she had a lot of thoughts about the kinds of 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:53.040 bad things that might happen. The whole purpose of insurers, 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.040 whether a health insurer or a life insure or a 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.840 long term disability insure, is to predict whether people are 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.200 in neither services or not, because the model was premised 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.000 on people not needing the services. And if an insurer 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.680 could find out through a Google search if they might 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.000 have to pay out an Alzheimer's claim on you, or 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:12.720 they have to pay out at Parkinson's claim on you, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:13.960 or they're going to have to support you through the 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.880 stabilitating diseases or MS. Right, you know, don't you think 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.720 you're not going to get that protection? So there is 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.480 one law. It's called the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. It 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.159 was passed in two tho eight, and it does offer 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:32.719 some limited protection of how your data can be used, 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.960 but it has a lot of loopholes, like, for example, 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.880 it does not apply to life insurance, so a life 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:44.359 ensure could potentially just ask you like, hey, have you 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.159 taken a DNA test? And if you have, you have 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.640 to give them that information and maybe they could decide 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.040 whether or not to give you life insurance coverage based 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.600 on it. I also think that because the Golden State 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.200 killer was such a brutal and violent case, there was 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.960 a lot of public septance behind the idea that finally 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.840 this technique had allowed us to identify a suspect. And 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:07.800 I think a lot of people think that because they 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.520 are not violent criminals, using this kind of technique to 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.639 hunt down very rare, very violent people won't affect them. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.239 And the unintended consequences of this technology are only just 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.440 beginning to unfold. Denying someone life insurance is just one 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.560 example of how this technology might be used, and we 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:28.800 don't really know at this stage how far it could go. 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.560 And I think that's the scariest part of this, right. 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.800 This is a technology that is kind of in its infancy. 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.360 You know, when cell phones first starting to be a thing, 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.439 I don't think anybody ever imagined that we would be 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:46.040 using them for everything besides actually making phone calls. And 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.679 you know, now I carry my iPhone around with me 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.719 all the time and it tracks my location. And to 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.640 your point, cell phone data is only one type of 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.880 personal data that we're entrusting to a third party company. 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.359 So that repository of data is sitting in one place 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.639 with your provider like Apple or Google um, which is 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.480 separate from the data that a company like twenty three 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.320 and me would have on you if you complete one 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.879 of these DNA tests, right. I think a really important 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.240 part of this story is you know that it's not 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.960 just the DNA data that CC is using to solve 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.480 these crimes. She's getting that data and then she's going 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.199 on Facebook and looking at all the information people have 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.520 shared there. And we're just sharing all of this data 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.840 and not thinking about the consequences, and it's really hard 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.240 to know where that will leave us in the future. 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.120 So it makes me think that as a society, we're 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.920 really just at the very beginning of understanding how much 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.080 our data is worth and how to take care of 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.000 it properly. Perhaps in the coming years, regulators will have 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.080 to step in and tell us what they think is 0:21:54.119 --> 0:22:04.160 a responsible way for companies to use our genetic information. Hey, 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.680 Kersten's going good. So we're now in the present day. 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:12.960 It's October, almost exactly a year after we first published 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:17.840 your story. A lot's happened since then. Give us the lowdown. Yeah, 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.120 so a lot has happened. I think the biggest thing 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:24.960 for me is that it's become very clear that forensic 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.800 genetic genealogy it's a tool, a technology that is not 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.560 going away anytime soon. This has now been used to 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.600 solve dozens and dozens and dozens of cold cases and 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:41.240 now also a lot of active cases. The Department of 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:46.639 Justice actually issued this really interesting preliminary policy report on 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.080 it as an investigative tool. But it was interesting because 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.679 there was also a cautionary note in that policy report. 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:57.119 They said this tool should be used as a last 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:01.919 resort because it is invasive, and they recognize that. Interesting. 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:04.720 What else is new? Yeah, so, I think one of 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:08.040 the most interesting things that has happened is we've started 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:11.720 to see this technology used for different kinds of cases. 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.880 There was one really controversial case just this year in 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:20.240 which jed match allowed police in Utah to use it 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.920 for a violent assault. Previously, it had mainly been used 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.600 for murders. I think there had been a few rapes 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:32.280 even but for some reason, this really upset users. They 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.440 felt like this was a violation of their privacy. They 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:40.120 had not consented to their information being used for this 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:43.440 kind of criminal investigation. That it was just too far 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.320 down the slippery slope. You know what's next using it 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:51.560 to prosecute shoplifters. And because of that backlash, jed match 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:55.520 actually had to make their site opt in instead of 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.680 opt out, which means that overnight it went from every 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.439 jed match user being automatically available to the police to 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:05.760 search unless they said they didn't want to do that, 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.320 to the opposite. And so their database went from having 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:14.000 more than a million people whose profiles the police could 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:19.240 access in order to do these investigations to having last 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:20.959 Night checked in with them. A few weeks ago, they 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:24.480 had just a hundred and thirty thousand people in their database, 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:28.480 which makes it almost useless to investigators. So what are 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.959 investigators using now? So there's one of their site, family 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:35.520 tree DNA, that has opened itself up to these kinds 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:40.360 of investigations. I think that jud match has been adding users. 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:43.080 They told me seven or eight hundred every week, so 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:45.960 they're hoping they get those numbers back up. But yeah, 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:49.639