WEBVTT - How Your DNA Test Could Land a Relative in Jail 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.040 A warning this episode contains some graphic descriptions of crime 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:15.560 scenes which might not be suitable for all listeners. In 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.360 the fall of seven, Tanya van Kailenberg and Jay Cook 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.239 took a ferry from their home in British Columbia to 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.159 Washington State. They were planning to run an errand the 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:30.480 next morning for Jay's father. A few days later, Tanya's 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.640 body was found in a ditch seventy miles north of Seattle. 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.680 She'd been raped with her hands bound behind her, and 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.800 there was a bullet your head. Two days later, hunters 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.640 found Jay under a bridge one county over. He had 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.480 been strangled with a dog collar. A pack of cigarettes 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.639 was stuffed in his mouth. Police had a theory. They 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.240 suspected the couple had met the killer on the ferry 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.240 and offered him a ride, but the leads ran out 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.200 and the case went cold until a few months. H 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.319 good morning and thank you all for being here. Yesterday 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.000 we took into custody of fifty five year old Sea Technique, 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.680 who was suspected of the murders of j Cooke, An, 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:17.440 Tanya and Kylie Burke. William Earld Tabot the second has 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.560 been booked into Snowoman County Jail on one count of 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:28.119 first degree murder on a war. Thirty one years after 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.160 the murder, police finally arrested a suspect. A woman named c. C. 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:36.160 Moore helped crack the case using a new and controversial technology. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.399 At the time, CECI was known for solving the mysteries 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:55.000 of people's family histories. Today, CECI hunt serial killers, Hi, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.680 I'm Pagat Kari and I'm Kristin Brown. And this week 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:03.720 on Decrypted works lauring the unintended consequences of consumer DNA tests. 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.359 These services are booming, with millions of people sending their 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.080 spit into companies like Ancestry and twenty three meets. They 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.320 promised to unite people with long lost family members, detect 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:20.040 risk of disease, and even suggests personalized dieting regiments, but 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.760 critics fear that our DNA could come to be used 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.200 in ways that would compromise our privacy and even potentially 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:39.960 land someone were related to in jail. Stay with us. Okay, 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.000 It was a classically cold and gray Pacific Northwest day 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.919 when I picked cc more up at our hotel about 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:51.000 an hour and a half outside Seattle. Hey, do you 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.320 want to put that in the track. Yeah, I can 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:55.959 put it in there. There were just a few miles 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.680 from More the murder of Tanya van Kilemberg and Jay 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.799 Cook took place. So I was just gonna say, I 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.320 was just realizing this morning that this we're in the 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.200 county right now where you solved your first case, right 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.679 are we in Stahomish cool. I saw a sign that 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.119 said this way, and I was was going to ask somebody. Yeah, 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.480 I realized Cecy was here in rural Washington State to 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.280 do what she has done for years, help people piece 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.600 together their family histories. She was speaking at the annual 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:29.600 Northwest Genealogical Conference. The day before, I had watched her 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.239 give a very technical talk about how to triangulate DNA 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:38.000 relatives to fill stubborn gaps and genealogies. Afterward, about two 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.160 dozen people rushed the stage to talk to her. One person, 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.240 apparently a distant cousin, even asked her to pose for 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.840 a picture. In this world, Cecymore is a star, but 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.960 she fell into it by accident because until about twenty 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.440 years ago, Cecy was an actress. Once she told me 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:56.040 she had a gig where she had to pretend to 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.240 be a bar Beam. She had come to our copy 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.480 date joing a suitcase with multiple outfit options for the 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.040 big banquet keynote she was giving later at the local 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.920 country club. Because it wasn't acting that made cc famous, 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:14.360 it was genealogy. About twenty years ago, my niece was 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.280 getting married and I was trying to think of a 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.720 good wedding gift, and I thought, Oh, a family tree 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.320 would be a cool wedding gift. I think I'll try 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.240 to put one together for her, and got online and 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.680 found ancestry dot com and started trying to figure that 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:36.000 out and became obsessed with in genealogy. Genealogists are like detectives, 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.840 but for the family tree. They use things like marriage 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.360 records and obituaries to piece together how people are related, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.200 and these days some of them, like Ceci, also used DNA. 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.120 CEC made her mark using DNA to crack tough to 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.800 solve mysteries like tracking down the birth parents of adopted children. 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.080 Then Ceci's life took a turn. In April, police arrested 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.880 a suspect in the long cold case of the Golden 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.400 State Killer, a notorious serial killer who terrorized California in 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:11.200 the nine seventies. And eighties. Huge break in a cold 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:15.280 case terrorizing California for decades. Police say they now have 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.000 a Golden State Killer in custody. Joseph D'Angelo is facing 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.640 new charges this morning, four counts of murder in Santa Barbara, 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.599 twelve murder charges now in all Cecy was gearing up 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.880 for attack at the genetic testing company three and when 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.400 news of the arrest happened. I woke up in a 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:37.160 hotel room in Mountain View and saw the headline that 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.120 the Golden State Killer had been arrested, and I knew 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:45.840 immediately that it was through genetic genealogy techniques. It didn't 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:50.200 come out immediately, but I knew that in the case 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.120 of the Golden State Killer, law enforcement had used a 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.279 genealogy website called jet match to find their suspect. Jet 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.640 Match is sort of like a big community pository for 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.400 DNA data. For example, I could upload my data from 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.120 say twenty three and me and find out whether I 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.040 might be related to someone else who uploaded data from 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.480 a different service like ancestry. What police did in this 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.320 case is they uploaded data from crime scene DNA and 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.600 then looked for potential suspects in the family trees of 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.440 other people who showed up as a genetic match, in 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:29.040 other words, people who shared the killer's DNA. We've reunited 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.840 tens of thousands of people with long lost family members, 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.040 and it's exactly the same technique. So if we can 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.040 do it there for adoptees, there's absolutely no reason we 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.160 can't do it in these law enforcement cases as well. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.840 In the past, c C had been hesitant to go 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.720 snooping through people's profiles for a purpose they'd never intended, 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.320 but once the Golden State killer case was splashed across 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.120 the headlines, she figured it was open season. I didn't 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.640 want to do this until people knew that it was 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.520 possible and that it was happening that their DNA could 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:11.120 be used for this purpose. CC's work is possible in 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:15.360 part because of a small software company called Parabon Nano Labs. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.160 A few years ago, Parabond created a program called Snapshot 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.320 that can use crime scene DNA to do basically what 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.520 a sketch artist does. It creates a vague picture of 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.600 what a suspect might look like. It does this by 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.320 processing crime scene DNA with the same kind of technology 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.640 that companies like twenty three and me and ancestry use 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.400 in the world of law enforcement. This hadn't really been 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.120 done before I actually visited Parabon along with Business Week 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:47.040 reporter Drake Bennett. Their technique provides a lot more data 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.560 than crime scene labs usually work with. One standard test, 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.040 for example, looks at just twenty three markers on the 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.720 Y chromosome. Markers are unique places on a person's genome, 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.320 but Parabon looks at thousands of markers and more data 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.120 means you can get a lot more detail about what 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.200 your suspect might be like and compare that data to 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.200 the consumer DNA tests that millions of people are doing 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.520 right now. And that's where CEC comes in. The data 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.640 that Parabond generates to create its DNA sketches is similar 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.480 to the data people upload to sites like jet match 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.240 when they're looking for relatives. Last year, CEC reached out 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.640 to Parabon to see if they could work together, and 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.800 eventually the company hired her to head up a new 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:35.160 unit devoted to forensic genetic genealogy. One of the first 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.720 cases to come in was from Snohomish County in Washington State. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.320 It was the case of j Cook and Tanya Van 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:43.959 Kuilenberg that we heard about at the start, and it 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.360 was right after the Golden State killer arrest, so there 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.360 was a lot of enthusiasm from law enforcement around the 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.400 country about using this same technique. Cecy got to work 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.120 and I kept waiting for matches to populate, but they 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.079 didn't populate. That Friday night, I went to sleep, and 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.000 I woke up Saturday morning to a list of DNA 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.760 matches on jed match. She got really lucky. There in 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.160 the list of matches was the geneological equivalent of winning 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.480 the lottery. Two cousins who shared a lot of DNA 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.080 with the suspect, but who didn't seem to be related 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.400 to each other. So imagine a cousin on your dad's 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.080 side of the family and another cousin on your mom's 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.079 side of the family. Those two cousins aren't related to 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.439 each other, but they are related to you. So that 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.040 tells me I should be able to find a triangulation 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.600 between them, meaning a place where those two family trees 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.679 come together. From there, Cecy turned to all the traditional 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.960 tools of genealogy to build a family tree for each 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.400 of the people who showed up as a match. That 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.640 meant searching through Facebook, newspaper archives, and local records to 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.000 figure out who else these people were related to. Since 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.840 the two cousins of the suspect weren't related to each other, 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.880 cecy knew that somewhere there had to be a marriage 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:02.719 between the two family. Eventually she found an obituary for 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.920 a woman from one family who was carrying a last 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:17.319 name from the other. Perhaps this was it. Cecie told 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.760 me marriage records are pretty good in Washington State, so 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.199 she was able to confirm that this was indeed the 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.199 marriage she'd been looking for. And this resulted in four children, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.920 three of which were female, and so we only had 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:36.319 one male. That one male was the only probable suspect. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.480 Within a few hours, ceci found herself staring at a name, 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:45.120 William Earl Talbot. The second police collected a new DNA 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.760 sample from him and confirmed it matched the DNA found 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.000 at the crime scene. Then, on May seventeen, police took 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.440 William Earl Talbot into custody. Of course, he hasn't been 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:01.240 found guilty yet, but my work certain points right at him. 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.480 William L. Talbot has been charged with both murders, but 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.120 he's pleaded not guilty. If he's convicted, he could face 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:16.880 the death penalty. The Snohomish case was just the first 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.679 murder case CECI tried to crack. To date, Parabon and 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.160 CC have solved more than a dozen cases, and they 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.360 have dozens more in the works. Parabon has added three 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.120 other full time genealogists to its stuff, with CCI heading 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.400 up that team. But when people ship their DNA after 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.240 or Ancestry to find out whether they're Italian or what 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:42.560 their genes say about their taste for cilantro, they probably 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.760 don't imagine it being used for a criminal investigation. The 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.800 Golden State killer case bren already bubbling conversation about DNA 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:56.040 and privacy. To a boy, all, when you send your 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.360 saliva off to a DNA testing company, you're handing over 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:04.600 x extremely sensitive, extremely personal information not just about yourself, 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:09.680 but about other people you're related to consumer genetic testing companies. 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.079 So companies like Ancestry and twenty three and me don't 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.600 in general share data with law enforcement unless they're legally 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:20.040 compelled to. But that data gets shared in lots of 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:25.800 other ways. For example, DNA testing companies are already using 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.800 the data for research. Over time, there could be other 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.800 uses for that data too. For example, what if advertisers 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.199 one day used it to Taylor adds to you, what 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.960 if authorities used it not just to hunt down serial killers, 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.400 but petty criminals. I got into some of this with 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.000 Aaron Murphy, she's a law professor, and yu, I mean 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.480 the police. You were able to use DNA to determine 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.920 something that probably people in the world do not know, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.400 which is who is your six cousins? I mean, I 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.599 always say, now, I don't think people have fully internalized 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.720 that they may be the person who's the pivot. Aaron 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.520 thinks that if we fully grasped the scope of what 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.200 law enforcement could learn about any of us by using 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:14.319 these new DNA technologies, we'd be truly shocked. Sometimes I 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.760 say like, okay, we'll go on twenty three and me 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:18.880 and look at the list of things that they're going 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:20.559 to tell you about, and then tell me if you 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.719 want to march down to your local precinct and and 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.880 give that list of those things so your shareff with 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.760 your name and the answers. To be clear, it is 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.760 highly unlikely that police would get hold of a whole 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.400 vial of saliva from a crime scene and send it 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.079 into a company like twenty three and me. Most of 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.720 the time there are just tiny bits of DNA left 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.680 behind at the scene of a crime. But the technology 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.480 has already advanced enough that these kinds of searchers are 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.199 actually possible through a pair bond nano labs and jet match, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.200 and your information could be exposed even if you don't 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.160 take one of these spit tests yourself. The key thing 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:56.880 here is that it doesn't have to be you, you know, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.640 if they can find that information out through a relative 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.240 of you earth because we're looking at you know, enough 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.240 snips that we could make a prediction about what you 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.640 look like based on your relative or whether your family 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.640 has certain dispositions, then the whole families could be cut 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.319 off because of one person's you know, cavalier approached to 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.840 another privacy. There actually is a precedent for what police 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.800 can and cannot do when it comes to locating criminal 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.800 suspects through their relatives. Police can upload crime scene data 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.120 to a government criminal DNA database called CODIS to see 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.760 if there's a match to anyone else. One major concern, though, 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.880 with using CODIS in this way, is that the database 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.200 exkews towards people of color, meaning that searching it for 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:45.640 family matches just continues to disproportionately imprisoned minority populations. But 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.320 privacy is a concern too, so in California, for example, 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.880 police can only use codeis after they've exhausted all other 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.520 search tools. It's called familial search. But some states have 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.240 strict laws governing when police are allowed to use it, 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.240 and at least to one state has actually forbid it altogether. 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:07.200 Those rules, though, only govern that federal database. Big open 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.160 platforms where people can voluntarily upload their data, services like 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.240 judd Match are private. That means CC's investigations are not 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.800 subject to those same strict rules that apply to government 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:23.240 DNA databases. In fact, she's already solved one case that 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.720 didn't meet California's rules for familial search. It was a 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:34.160 three month old rape case in Utah. But CC is 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.400 wary of her palace. She worries, for one, about genealogists 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.720 who don't know what they're doing leading police to the 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.200 wrong suspect. That's actually already sort of happened once a 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:49.840 few years back, using a slightly different technology. You know, 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:51.960 I don't like the idea of this being the wild 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.080 West where people that don't have any law enforcement experience, 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:00.680 are out there offering services to law enforcement, and there's 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.720 no quality control, you know, there's no checks and balances, 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.320 And I want to make sure that genetic genealogy is 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.720 shown in the best possible way through these cases with 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:16.239 law enforcement and that there aren't unnecessary missteps or negative outcomes. 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.680 But CC doesn't have the same concerns about people's privacy. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.480 She said it would be hard for jed match users 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.000 at this point to not know that she's creeping around 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.320 in there, and she thinks her work might prevent some 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:34.000 innocent people from being wrongly suspected. Now, yes, some innocent 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.720 family members are going to get pulled into investigations, but 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:43.720 it's going to eliminate dozens or hundreds or sometimes even 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.440 thousands of innocent people that are completely unrelated to the 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:54.360 crime or the criminals being looked at. Okay, So, P 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.760 after hearing about all of this, I have to know, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:03.760 have you ever taken a DNA test? You know I haven't, 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:05.879 and I guess at some level it's because I was 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.280 always a little creeped out about it. But actually quite 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.639 a few of my relatives have done these tests, and 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:13.800 so I know I'm exposed I just don't know how much. 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.280 So there was actually a very interesting study that just 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.959 came out that answers that question. So this researcher from 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:27.840 Colombia and another DNA testing company called my Heritage found 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.000 that if you are an American of European descent, there 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.560 is a sixty percent chance that you have a relative 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:37.920 that has done a DNA test that could expose you. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.040 So basically, we're approaching all of us being exposed. And 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.439 that's basically what happened in the case of the Golden 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.119 State killer. He didn't actually take one of these DNA 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.800 tests himself, but obviously someone he's related to did, and 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.000 not just that, they then took the second step of 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.920 uploading their results to jet match, this open source community platform, 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.359 and without that second step, police would never have been 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.920 able to crack the case. I think when people take 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.880 these tests, even if they have, you know, maybe thought 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:14.280 about these consequences, it still seems unrealistic that anything really 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.840 bad would happen because of sharing their data. But actually, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.320 you know, Aaron Murphy is one of the most cynical 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.879 people I've met when it comes to genetic privacy, and 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.240 she had a lot of thoughts about the kinds of 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.760 bad things that might happen. The whole purpose of insurers, 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.760 whether a health insurer or a life insure or a 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.560 long term disability insure, is to predict whether people are 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:40.359 going to need their services or not, because the model 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.120 is premised on people not needing the services. And if 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.840 an insurer could find out through a Google search if 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.399 they might have to pay out an Alzheimer's claim on you, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:51.399 or they have to pay out at Parkinson's claim on you, 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:53.320 or they're going to have to support you through thoseabilitating 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.600 diseases or MS. Right, you know, I don't e think 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.720 you're not going to get that protection. So there is one. 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.639 It's called the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. It was passed 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.879 in two thousand and it does offer some limited protection 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:13.600 of how your data can be used, but it has 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.399 a lot of loopholes, like, for example, it does not 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.800 apply to life insurance, so life ensure could potentially just 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.320 ask you like, hey, have you taken a DNA test? 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:26.840 And if you have, you have to give them that 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.000 information and maybe they could decide whether or not to 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.800 give you life insurance coverage based on it. I also 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.080 think that because the Golden state killer was such a 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.560 brutal and violent case, there was a lot of public 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.040 acceptance behind the idea that finally, this technique had allowed 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.040 us to identify a suspect. And I think a lot 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.960 of people think that because they are not violent criminals, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.840 using this kind of technique to hunt down very rare, 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:57.000 very violent people won't affect them. And the unintended consequences 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.399 of this technology are only just beginning to unfold. Denying 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.159 someone life insurance is just one example of how this 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.040 technology might be used, and we don't really know at 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.040 this stage how far it could go, and I think 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:11.960 that's the scariest part of this, right. This is a 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.720 technology that is kind of in its infancy. You know, 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:17.359 when cell phones first starting to be a thing, I 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.480 don't think anybody ever imagined that we would be using 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:25.040 them for everything besides actually making phone calls. And you know, 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.800 now I carry my iPhone around with me all the 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.960 time and it tracks my location. And to your point, 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.240 cell phone data is only one type of personal data 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.920 that we're entrusting to a third party company. So that 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.520 repository of data is sitting in one place with your 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.000 provider like Apple or Google, um, which is separate from 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.359 the data that a company like twenty three and me 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:48.320 would have on you if you complete one of these 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.159 DNA tests, right. I think a really important part of 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.840 this story is you know that it's not just the 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.320 DNA data that CC is using to solve these crimes. 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.920 She's going that data and then she's going on Facebook 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.920 and looking at all the information people have shared there. 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.600 And we're just sharing all of this data and not 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.760 thinking about the consequences, And it's really hard to know 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.720 where that will leave us in the future. So it 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.080 makes me think that as a society, we're really just 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.000 at the very beginning of understanding how much our data 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.240 is worth and how to take care of it properly. 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.000 Perhaps in the coming years regulators will have to step 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.359 in and tell us what they think is a responsible 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:39.360 way for companies to use our genetic information. And that's 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.480 it for this week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Have you 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.440 tried genetic testing? We want to hear your story. You 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.119 can email us at decrypted at Bloomberg dot net or 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.840 I'm on Twitter at Kristin V. Brown and I'm at 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.840 pgat Cary. If you're a fan of the show, please 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.680 consider leaving us a rating and a review. It really 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.200 helps new listeners find the oh. This episode was produced 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.440 by Pa Good, Kari and Liz Smith. Our story editor 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.600 was Aki Edo. A big shout out to Drake Bennett. 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.439 We've got a more in depth look at genetic genealogy 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.800 and ccmore that will appear in Bloomberg Business Week shortly, 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:17.399 so keep an eye out for that. Thanks also to 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:22.000 Ann Vandermay, Emily Buso, and Magnus Henrikson. Francesco Levie is 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.400 head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week.