Crack Down on Genomic Surveillance

Comment JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/GETTY Police patrol a food market at night in Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang province. debate, legislation and best practices have emerged in many countries around the use of Crack down on DNA profiling in law enforcement2. (In profiling, several regions across the genome, each con- sisting of tens of nucleotides, are sequenced genomic surveillance to identify a person or their relatives.) Now the stakes are higher for two reasons. First, as technology gets cheaper, many Yves Moreau countries might want to build massive DNA databases. Second, DNA-profiling technology can be used in conjunction with other tools for Corporations selling cross the world, DNA databases biometric identification — and alongside the that could be used for state-level analysis of many other types of personal data, DNA-profiling technology surveillance are steadily growing. including an individual’s posting behaviour are aiding human-rights The most striking case is in China. on social networks. Last year, the Chinese abuses. Governments, Here police are using a national DNA firm Forensic Genomics International (FGI) Adatabase along with other kinds of surveillance announced that it was storing the DNA pro- legislators, researchers, data, such as from video cameras and facial files of more than 100,000 people from across reviewers and publishers scanners, to monitor the minority Muslim China (FGI, known as Shenzhen Huada Forensic Uyghur population in the western province Technology in China, is a subsidiary of the BGI, must act. of Xinjiang. the world’s largest genome-research organiza- Concerns about the potential downsides of tion). It made the information available to the governments being able to interrogate people’s individuals through WeChat, China’s equiva- DNA have been voiced since the early 2000s lent of WhatsApp, using an app accessed by (ref. 1) by activist groups, such as the non-profit facial recognition. organization GeneWatch UK, and some genet- With stringent safeguards and oversight, it icists (myself included) . Partly thanks to such is legitimate for law-enforcement agencies to 36 | Nature | Vol 576 | 5 December 2019 ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. use DNA-profiling technology. But these uses DNA TESTING FOR ALL “culture of being influenced by opposition can easily creep towards human-rights abuses. An increasing number of people are having their DNA and protests” (see go.nature.com/337pjce). In October this year, the US Department of analysed by consumer-genomics companies. Restrictions on the use of technologies Homeland Security announced that it would Ancestry 23andMe Others or services provided by corporations are authorize the mandatory collection of DNA 30 currently too weak. Take export controls: samples from immigrants in federal custody either they do not pay due attention to at the US border, including children and those these sensitive technologies, or they have 25 applying for asylum at legal ports of entry. loopholes that often render them useless. The resulting DNA profiles will be available Relatedness means For example, US laws forbid the export of that the genetic 20 through a database called CODIS (Combined privacy of untested fingerprint-recognition technology to some DNA Index System), which includes the pro- people is at risk now destinations or users deemed problematic that firms hold DNA files of convicted offenders and individuals 15 by the US government, such as the Chinese sted (millions) data for ~5% of the arrested for serious offences. Such treatment e US population. police. But the United States does not restrict could reinforce debunked claims that immi- the export of more-invasive DNA-profiling 10 eople t grants are more prone to criminal behaviour P and facial-recognition technologies. Mean- . 2019 (HTTPS://GO.NATURE.COM/2MHTJED) . 2019 than the general population. while, the European Union does not regulate A much broader array of stakeholders must 5 the export of fingerprint technology, even engage with the problems that DNA data- though the dominant global suppliers are MIT TECH. REV MIT TECH. bases present. In particular, governments, European. 0 policymakers and legislators should tighten 2013 2015 2017 2019 Export controls for biometric technologies SOURCE: SOURCE: regulation and reduce the likelihood of corpo- could be improved relatively easily. The US rations aiding potential human-rights abuses in DNA-profiling technologies (see ‘Ethical Department of Commerce is currently con- by selling DNA-profiling technology to bad divesting’). sidering revising regulations for emerging actors — knowingly or negligently. Research- US and European corporations are still technologies6, such as Internet censorship ers working on biometric identification tech- the dominant providers of such technolo- and video surveillance, to try to reduce the nologies should consider more deeply how gies. The deployment of DNA-surveillance likelihood of companies doing business with their inventions could be used. And editors, infrastructure in Xinjiang, for example, problematic buyers. Last month, it barred reviewers and publishers must do more to was enabled by the Chinese government Xinjiang police forces and eight Chinese ensure that published research on biometric buying products from — and working with technology companies from buying US prod- identification has been done in an ethical way. — the US company Thermo Fisher Scien- ucts or importing US technology because of tific in Waltham, Massachusetts. The firm their role in the repression of Uyghurs. Government monitoring is currently the global leading supplier of Some regulatory initiatives are promising In Xinjiang in China, police collected biometric DNA-profiling technology in law enforce- and could provide a deterrent if enforced. information (including blood samples, finger- ment. Thermo Fisher Scientific researchers The 2017 EU directive on non-financial prints and eye scans) from nearly 19 million have worked with China’s Ministry of Justice, reporting (named 2014/95) has mandated people in 2017, in a programme called ‘Physicals and with researchers at the People’s Public that large companies listed on stock markets for All’. This was part of a suite of measures that Security University of China, which falls document their social and environmental are being used by the Chinese government to directly under the Ministry of Public Secu- impacts in their annual reports for share- control the Uyghur ethnic group3. rity, to tailor the technology specifically for holders and the public. Since 2017, France’s Other nations are building massive DNA corporate ‘duty of vigilance’ law has required databases or considering doing so. In 2015, all French companies employing more than Kuwait passed a law mandating DNA profiling “Governments keep being 5,000 people in the country to actively of its entire population. Foreigners living in tempted to hoover up their monitor their impacts on human rights, Kuwait and even visitors were to be included. citizens’ DNA.” the environment and so on (see go.nature. In January this year, Kenya passed a law that com/2o8tcvn). would have enabled the government to require In the United States, several human-rights all citizens to submit any biometric informa- use in Tibetan and Uyghur populations5. lawyers have attempted to revive the Alien tion, including DNA profiles, to a national (Thermo Fisher Scientific did not respond to a Tort Statute (28 U.S.C. § 1350) over the past database. request for comment). However, in February, 20 years. Produced in 1789 but never deployed, Both cases have hit obstacles. Kuwait’s after two years of public outcry and intense this law could enable a foreign individual to Constitutional Court overruled the 2015 law pressure from high-profile US senators, the make a civil liability claim against a domestic two years later, because of concerns about company announced that it would stop sell- corporation in US courts. A carefully crafted how the database could be used in violations ing its DNA-profiling technology in Xinjiang. Alien Tort Statute could provide a way to hold of privacy and due process. And, thanks to a Marketing and lobbying by technology sup- companies to the same standards, whether decision taken by Kenya’s High Court in April, pliers is often behind pushes for the broadest they are operating at home or abroad. DNA is now excluded from national efforts to possible use of DNA profiling. In 2016, for Ultimately, international laws must be collect biometric data. instance, a representative of a US lobbying established that clearly stipulate the human- But these and other examples indicate that firm working for Thermo Fisher Scientific rights responsibilities of corporations. For governments keep being tempted to hoover described in a conference presentation the the past decade, a United Nations working up their citizens’ DNA data4. development of universal DNA databases as group has been drafting a treaty to regulate “inevitable”. He noted that the expansion of the activities of transnational corporations Corporate responsibility these to “Western countries or other coun- with regards to human rights and the envi- One way to reduce the likelihood of massive tries with democratic forms of government” ronment (see go.nature.com/35qnehe). If it DNA databases being misused is to change faced “significant hurdles”, such as the “open is not crippled by lobbying, this could even- the behaviour

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