ArticlePLoS biology2018
Should police have access to genetic genealogy databases? Capturing the Golden State Killer and other criminals using a controversial new forensic technique.
Article in PLoS biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Portable, Patient-Possessed Health Record: Architecture for Care Coordination as an Alternative to Centralized Data Aggregation.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A bibliometric analysis of investigative genetic genealogy in academic literature: Trends, networks, and emerging themes.Forensic science international. Synergy · 2026Review
- "If It Don't Talk, It's Not Whakapapa Data": Conceptualising Whakapapa Data in a Digital Age.Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand · 2026Article
- Development and psychometric evaluation of a new genetic attitudes questionnaire in two national samples of United States residents.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A United Kingdom nationally representative survey of public attitudes towards pharmacogenomics.QJM : monthly journal of the Association of Physicians · 2025Article
- Navigating sexual orientation and gender identity data privacy concerns in United States genetics practices.Journal of genetic counseling · 2025Article
- FIGG at 5: An update on U.S. public perspectives on forensic investigative genetic genealogy five years after its introduction to criminal investigations.Forensic science international · 2025Article
- Investigative genetic genealogy practices warranting policy attention: Results of a modified policy Delphi.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Opt-in or out? Public perspectives on forensic DNA kinship investigations within the Dutch-speaking community.Heliyon · 2024Article
- IGG in the trenches: Results of an in-depth interview study on the practice, politics, and future of investigative genetic genealogy.Forensic science international · 2024Article
- Insights from social media into public perspectives on investigative genetic genealogy.Frontiers in genetics · 2024Article
- Law enforcement use of genetic genealogy databases in criminal investigations: Nomenclature, definition and scope.Forensic science international. Synergy · 2024Article
- A game theoretic approach to balance privacy risks and familial benefits.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Guidelines for genetic ancestry inference created through roundtable discussions.HGG advances · 2023Article
- Ethical Considerations in Research with Genomic Data.The New bioethics : a multidisciplinary journal of biotechnology and the body · 2023Article
- Direct-to-consumer genetic testing in the news: a descriptive analysis.Journal of community genetics · 2023Article
- The ELSI Virtual Forum, 30 Years of the Genome: Integrating and Applying ELSI Research.The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2023Article
- National Technology Validation and Implementation Collaborative (NTVIC) policies and procedures for Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIGG).Forensic science international. Synergy · 2023Article
- Open-source benchmarking of IBD segment detection methods for biobank-scale cohorts.GigaScience · 2022Article
- GATTACA is still pertinent 25 years later.Nature genetics · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
On April 24, 2018, a suspect in California's notorious Golden State Killer cases was arrested after decades of eluding the police. Using a novel forensic approach, investigators identified the suspect by first identifying his relatives using a free, online genetic database populated by individuals researching their family trees. In the wake of the case, media outlets reported privacy concerns with police access to personal genetic data generated by or shared with genealogy services. Recent data from 1,587 survey respondents, however, provide preliminary reason to question whether such concerns have been overstated. Still, limitations on police access to genetic genealogy databases in particular may be desirable for reasons other than current public demand for them.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.