Washington Law Review Volume 95 Number 4 12-1-2020 The Thickness of Blood: Article I, Section 7, Law Enforcement, and Commercial DNA Databases Hannah Parman
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the State and Local Government Law Commons Recommended Citation Hannah Parman, Comment, The Thickness of Blood: Article I, Section 7, Law Enforcement, and Commercial DNA Databases, 95 Wash. L. Rev. 2057 (2020). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol95/iss4/10 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at UW Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington Law Review by an authorized editor of UW Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Parman (1) (Do Not Delete) 12/19/2020 6:01 PM THE THICKNESS OF BLOOD: ARTICLE I, SECTION 7, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND COMMERCIAL DNA DATABASES Hannah Parman* Abstract: Law enforcement agencies increasingly use online commercial and open source DNA databases to identify suspects in cases that have long since gone cold. By uploading crime scene DNA to one of these websites, investigators can find family members who have used the website and build a family tree leading back to the owner of the original DNA. This is called “familial DNA searching.” The highest profile use of this investigative method to date occurred in California, but law enforcement in Washington State has been quick to begin utilizing the method as well.