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- Convenors:
-
Rafaela Granja
(University of Minho)
Matthias Wienroth (Northumbria University)
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- Discussants:
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David Skinner
(Anglia Ruskin University)
Nina de Groot (VU University Amsterdam)
- Format:
- Closed Panel
Short Abstract:
We welcome contributions that critically analyse different aspects of the increasing dissolving of boundaries between forensic, medical, and surveillance, as well as commercial and non-commercial domains from epistemological, ontological, ethical, governance, political, and practical perspectives.
Long Abstract:
Much governance of policing and criminal justice in global jurisdictions has assumed that standard biomarkers on the genome used for investigative analysis can only help compare and match two or more individual profiles, but not attribute categorical personal information – such as health, ancestry, or “lifestyle” – to each. However, genetics technologies such as massive parallel sequencing, epigenetics, DNA phenotyping, and genetic genealogy, significantly challenge this basis for legitimacy. These technologies form part of an increasingly complex ‘forensic genetics’ assemblage, fostering new and deepening dependencies between diverse policing agencies, research scientists, and commercial companies. The shift in knowledge production, in close association with dissolving boundaries between very diverse producer and user groups in this assemblage, has significant implications for identification practices as well as for governance of policing and criminal justice.
In this panel, we welcome contributions that critically explore the dissolving of boundaries between forensic, medical, and surveillance, as well as commercial and non-commercial domains from epistemological, ontological, ethical, governance, political, and practical perspectives. Our aim is to contribute to analysis and anticipation of knowledge production and governance of science and technology, particularly, forensic genetics, by delivering theoretical conceptualizations, methodological approaches, and/or empirical case studies.
Complementarily, we encourage contributors to reflect on STS-inspired perspectives on ongoing transformations of the forensic genetics assemblage, and on their role in its ‘making and doing’ (critique, enhanced practice, collaborations, etc.): How can STS scholars (1) engage in reflective practices that critically analyse the new forensic genetics assemblage; (2) reflect on the different situated knowledges it entails; and (3) intervene in the construction of new forms of ethical governance.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Matthias Wienroth (Northumbria University) Rafaela Granja (University of Minho)
Short abstract:
Interdependent effects of new forensic genetics technologies facilitate dissolving of boundaries between forensic & medical and commercial & non-commercial domains, fostering an increasingly complex forensic genetics assemblage of dependencies between policing agencies, scientists, and companies.
Long abstract:
A key aspect of legitimising the use of forensic genetics in policing has been that standard biomarkers on the genome used for investigative analysis can only help compare and match two or more profiles, but not attribute personal information – such as health, ancestry, or “lifestyle” – to each. A significant amount of policing legislation and codes of criminal proceedings in European jurisdictions have been based on this assumption. New and emerging technologies, i.e., massive parallel sequencing, forensic epigenetics, forensic DNA phenotyping, and forensic genetic genealogy, challenge this basis. In this paper, we analyse how the compounding, interdependent effects of these technologies facilitate the dissolving of boundaries between forensic and medical, as well as between commercial and non-commercial domains. Mobilizing social epistemology and epistemic culture as dual analytical lens, we argue that we can witness the emergence of an increasingly complex forensic genetics assemblage, fostering dependencies between policing agencies, research scientists, and commercial companies.
Nina de Groot (VU University Amsterdam)
Long abstract:
Genomic data plays an increasingly important role in a wide variety of contexts in society, such as commercial DNA testing, the forensic setting, archaeological research, and genetic surveillance. Genomic information also crosses the borders of these domains, e.g. forensic use of commercial genomic data, commercial use of genomic research data, or research use of commercial genomic data. Bio-ethical frameworks on genomic data tend to depoliticize ethical issues, as bioethical frameworks often depart from the medical context and are often difficult to apply one-to-one on other complex domains, such as in criminal justice. This paper proposes the contextual integrity framework as a way to explore the ethical issues of these different uses of genomic data, in particular when this crosses the borders of these domains, including to the forensic setting. The contextual integrity framework is a theory rooted in information technology and big data ethics. Rather than focusing on individual control over information, the contextual integrity approach holds that information should be shared and protected according to the norms that govern certain distinct social contexts. Several advantages of this contextual integrity approach for genomic data will be discussed, including that the framework is sensitive to group interests, power structures, and commercialization issues. The paper concludes that the contextual integrity framework helps to articulate and address a broad spectrum of ethical, social, and political factors in a variety of different societal contexts, while giving consideration to the interests of individuals, groups, and society at large.
Margaux Coquet
Long abstract:
The complexity and dynamism of technological development in the context of its use in criminal investigation calls for a deep reflection on the structures of criminal law. Indeed, there is growing concern regarding the failure of the current guarantees, such as the presumption of innocence or the right to privacy, to effectively address the numerous breaches in fundamental rights raised by emerging forensic technologies. Not only the substance, but also the type of normativity that is characteristic of modern criminal law and its abstract and autonomous conception and approach of social life is questioned, as well as the legal knowledges that are used to support these conceptions. Thus, my contribution will aim at exploring the development of a reflexive normativity and transdisciplinary legal science, that will be able to properly contain the expansion of forensics instruments despite their lack of reliability or negative impact on individual rights.
Simon Cole (University of California, Irvine)
Long abstract:
Recent STS scholarship on genetic surveillance has shifted its attention from large, centralized government databases to smaller, decentralized, “consensual,” consumer-driven databases. However, less attention has been paid to databases that are both government-run and smaller and “consensual.”
The Orange County District Attorney DNA database (OCDNA) in California, USA, known colloquially as “Spit and Acquit,” is compiled through negotiated agreements in which individuals charged with low-level crimes exchange a DNA sample for dropping of charges or reduction of sanction. At almost 200,000 genetic profiles, it is the largest “consensual” database in the United States, “the largest forensic database in” the U.S. “never authorized by a legislature,” and it is larger than the official databases of 25 of the United States. Free of legislative oversight, OCDNA has more leeway to engage with commercial partners and potentially use the data for other purposes with little public regulation.
OCDNA’s “consensual” nature presents a particular challenge to those seeking to resist its expansion of genetic surveillance. STS scholars and others have explored various ways of intervening against excessive genetic surveillance practices, such as “function creep,” phenotypic profiling, and familial searching.
Litigation, as an intervention practice, however, has primarily focused on forensic genetics and its use in individual legal proceedings. The present paper reports on the use of litigation to intervene against the expansion of genetic surveillance through the OCDNA “consensual” database. It discusses the unusual contingent circumstances that made such an intervention possible, and it reflects on how it might inform other such efforts.
David Skinner (Anglia Ruskin University)
Long abstract:
Ethical, legal, and political discussion of second wave forensic genetics has centred on the operation and governance of national police DNA databases. Now commentators and practitioners highlight how innovations such as DNA phenotyping, partial ‘familial’ matches, the repurposing of ancestry data, and new techniques for sample analysis disrupt this forensic genetic assemblage. Understandably, discussions have focused on drivers and consequences internal to the worlds of forensic genetics. Using the UK example, however, this paper locates change in three wider contexts: scientific and technological developments in policing; crises in the government and governance of policing; and the strategic significance ascribed to life science in national policymaking.
UK Policing is increasingly based on forms of abstraction and automation centred on the collection, management, and analysis of multiple forms of data. The scale of online sex offending, the rise of digital forensics, the growth of image databases and image recognition, all suggest the challenges and opportunities offered by a deluge of potentially valuable information. Meanwhile forensic genetics have become normalised and routinized under conditions of institutional complexity, instability, and financial constraint, leading to governmental neglect and a further thinning of ethical governance. Lastly, life science has become central to a vision of future UK prosperity and global pre-eminence rooted in biocapitalism in which citizens’ genetic, health, and welfare data in combination become key national assets. The conjunction of these three sets of developments create conditions in which the certainties of second wave forensic genetics may soon seem outdated.
Carole McCartney (Leicester University)
Long abstract:
This paper will respond to a recent provocation by a police policy-lead who, when faced with a challenge to the utilisation of biometrics responded: “Our duty is to protect the public, it’s for others to worry about ethics.” Continuing recent explorations of ethics in forensic genetics by Wienroth et al, the paper looks at duties and imperatives in forensic genetics, asking what duties might exist, and where responsibility for discharging them lies.