The Legal Aid Society is urging the New York State Commission on Forensic Science to reject the State Police’s premature request to begin using SNP DNA testing. This emerging type of test provides highly sensitive information about a person’s ancestry, genetic and health dispositions, and other private information. Advocates are demanding clear, binding legal guardrails before this type of testing is allowed to move forward.

In a letter to the Commission and its DNA Subcommittee, Legal Aid and 10 additional sister organizations lay out the differences between current DNA testing and SNP DNA testing, and the potential consequences of misuse by law enforcement.

“SNP-based testing is the gateway to a broader investigative process that can draw entire families into criminal investigations and raises significant privacy, due process, and constitutional concerns,” the letter reads. “No other forensic technique carries this extraordinary capacity to draw innocent family members into law enforcement scrutiny.”

“Once a suspect is identified, investigations can narrow, assumptions can harden, and errors can compound,” the letter continues. “In a criminal justice system where the overwhelming majority of convictions are secured through guilty pleas rather than trials, a mistaken lead can have life-altering consequences long before a court ever evaluates the evidence.”

Because New York does not currently have laws governing the use of this new technology, and because SNP testing implicates unsettled areas of civil rights, privacy, and due process, the letter urges the Commission to resolve these open questions before it votes to deploy this powerful, intrusive tool.