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98 Wash. Univ. L. Rev. Online 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/wshuvylw98 and id is 1 raw text is: Washington University Law Review Online VOLUME 98 2020 COLD CASES FREEZE: LAW ENFORCEMENT LOCKED OUT OF DNA DATABASE USED FOR INVESTIGATIVE GENEALOGY AFTER CONSUMERS OBJECT TO BEING GENETIC INFORMANTS NANCI K. CARR* ABSTRACT California's infamous Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, a serial killer and rapist, committed a string of crimes during the 1970s and 1980s, and avoided capture for more than 40 years until genetic data available online led to his arrest. His capture caused users of popular testing services such as Ancestry and 23andMe to question whether their genetic data was freely available to police investigators. By using one of these services to learn about their great-grandparents, users may not want law enforcement to use their data to solve a cold case involving one of their living relatives. To prevent that, GEDmatch, afree website for sharing DNA profiles, changed its terms ofservice and locked out law enforcement unless consumers agreed to permit access to their profiles. Does the value to society of solving the cold case outweigh any privacy issues of the consumer using the testing service? Should control over these decisions rest with a testing service that can change its terms of service on a whim? * Nanci K. Carr is an Assistant Professor of Business Law at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). J.D., cum laude, Southwestern Law School; B.S., Business Administration, Ball State University. Thanks to research assistant Angeline Gomez, CSUN Class of 2019. 1

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