Terri Rosenblatt, Supervising Attorney of the DNA Unit at The Legal Aid Society, appeared on the Surveillance and the City podcast to discuss the emerging legal landscape surrounding the City’s DNA collection and storage practices.

Legal Aid and privacy advocates throughout the city have harshly criticized methods used by the New York City Police Department, ranging from surreptitious harvesting of genetic information from unsuspecting New Yorkers, to the sharing of such information with both government agencies and as well as commercial companies who promise to generate “virtual mugshots” from the DNA samples that have the potential to identity suspects and solve crimes.

Rosenblatt called the NYPD’s methods “terrifying,” warning listeners that the unscrupulous methods already observed to be in use by the NYPD reveal them to be irresponsible stewards of such information, and stands as a warning to all New Yorkers who may become subjected to forensic science surveillance in the future.

“The NYPD thinks that it is fine and dandy to take a 12-year-old child in for questioning, ask that child’s mother ‘Can i take a DNA sample from your child?,’ [and] when the mothers says “no,” give that child a Mountain Dew to take their DNA secretly from the soda can anyway,” Rosenblatt said. “And once they take that it is absolutely fine to put that DNA into an unregulated DNA index that is run by the NYC Department of Health . . . New York City is operating a rogue DNA database. This DNA database does not connect . . . with the [national or state databases], it’s a closed DNA database for only New York City residents, whose evidence is taken by the NYPD before and sometimes without any conviction of a crime at all.”

Listen to the full episode below.