Socio-technical disagreements as ethical fora: Parabon NanoLab’s forensic DNA Snapshot™ service at the intersection of discourses around robust science, technology validation, and commerce

The politics of face and the trouble with race: Exploring relations at the interface between the individual and the collective in forensic practice

This special issue interrogates race through the lens of face. Its central faces are those in forensic settings. Promising immediate legibility and access to the individual suspect, forensic faces nevertheless mobilize a variety of collectives. We offer conceptual and methodological tools to examine the face as both an individual and a collective phenomenon, and demonstrate through detailed cases how the face thus allows us to address the absent presence of race. Given its long and convoluted history in physical anthropology, as a marker of racial typology, the face forces us to reckon with colonial histories of ordering human difference. But the face also allows us to question a regime of visuality that congeals around the face in Western culture. In this introduction to The Politics of Face and the Trouble with Race we elaborate these concerns and introduce the contributions to this volume.

Forensic DNA phenotyping and its politics of legitimation and contestation: Views of forensic geneticists in Europe

Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) is a set of techniques that aim to infer externally visible characteristics in humans - such as eye, hair and skin color - and biogeographical ancestry of an unknown person, based on biological material. FDP has been applied in various jurisdictions in a limited number of high-profile cases to provide intelligence for criminal investigations. There are on-going controversies about the reliability and validity of FDP, which come together with debates about the ethical challenges emerging from the use of this technology in the criminal justice system. Our study explores how, in the context of complex politics of legitimation of and contestation over the use of FDP, forensic geneticists in Europe perceive this technology's potential applications, utility and risks. Forensic geneticists perform several forms of discursive boundary work, making distinctions between science and the criminal justice system, experts and non-experts, and good and bad science. Such forms of boundary work reconstruct the complex positioning vis-à-vis legal and scientific realities. In particular, while mobilizing interest in FDP, forensic geneticists simultaneously carve out notions of risk, accountability and scientific conduct that perform distance from FDP' implications in the criminal justice system.

Implementing Core Genes and an Omnigenic Model for Behaviour Traits Prediction in Genomics

A high number of genome variants are associated with complex traits, mainly due to genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Using polygenic risk scores (PRSs) is a widely accepted method for calculating an individual's complex trait prognosis using such data. Unlike monogenic traits, the practical implementation of complex traits by applying this method still falls behind. Calculating PRSs from all GWAS data has limited practical usability in behaviour traits due to statistical noise and the small effect size from a high number of genome variants involved. From a behaviour traits perspective, complex traits are explored using the concept of core genes from an omnigenic model, aiming to employ a simplified calculation version. Simplification may reduce the accuracy compared to a complete PRS encompassing all trait-associated variants. Integrating genome data with datasets from various disciplines, such as IT and psychology, could lead to better complex trait prediction. This review elucidates the significance of clear biological pathways in understanding behaviour traits. Specifically, it highlights the essential role of genes related to hormones, enzymes, and neurotransmitters as robust core genes in shaping these traits. Significant variations in core genes are prominently observed in behaviour traits such as stress response, impulsivity, and substance use.

Gattaca as a lens on contemporary genetics: marking 25 years into the film's "not-too-distant" future

The 1997 film Gattaca has emerged as a canonical pop culture reference used to discuss modern controversies in genetics and bioethics. It appeared in theaters a few years prior to the announcement of the "completion" of the human genome (2000), as the science of human genetics was developing a renewed sense of its social implications. The story is set in a near-future world in which parents can, with technological assistance, influence the genetic composition of their offspring on the basis of predicted life outcomes. The current moment-25 years after the film's release-offers an opportunity to reflect on where society currently stands with respect to the ideas explored in Gattaca. Here, we review and discuss several active areas of genetic research-genetic prediction, embryo selection, forensic genetics, and others-that interface directly with scenes and concepts in the film. On its silver anniversary, we argue that Gattaca remains an important reflection of society's expectations and fears with respect to the ways that genetic science has manifested in the real world. In accompanying supplemental material, we offer some thought questions to guide group discussions inside and outside of the classroom.

Integrity, Trustworthiness, and Effectiveness: Towards an Ethos for Forensic Genetics

Forensic genetics comes under critical scrutiny when developments challenge previously accepted legal, ethical, social, and other boundaries. Forensic geneticists continue to build a knowledge culture within a community of practice that acknowledges ethical standards of conduct in both research and the societal application of forensic genetics. As the community further cements and extends its societal role, and in that process often pushing at ethical and legal boundaries, it requires a strong, resilient, and responsive ethos that, in setting clear parameters for conduct, fosters the field’s sense of purpose. While supra-national declarations and human rights protections, coupled with local regulations, provide some parameters for practice, and discipline-specific guidance has refined an agenda for forensic genetics research and application, this maturing field needs to now define its core principles. This contribution proposes the values of integrity, trustworthiness, and effectiveness as a foundational triptych for a bespoke forensic genetics ethos to ensure the augmentation of developments that range from a purely science-oriented to a wider societally relevant knowledge culture.

Decoding the Human Face: Challenges and Progress in Understanding the Genetics of Craniofacial Morphology

Variations in the form of the human face, which plays a role in our individual identities and societal interactions, have fascinated scientists and artists alike. Here, we review our current understanding of the genetics underlying variation in craniofacial morphology and disease-associated dysmorphology, synthesizing decades of progress on Mendelian syndromes in addition to more recent results from genome-wide association studies of human facial shape and disease risk. We also discuss the various approaches used to phenotype and quantify facial shape, which are of particular importance due to the complex, multipartite nature of the craniofacial form. We close by discussing how experimental studies have contributed and will further contribute to our understanding of human genetic variation and then proposing future directions and applications for the field.

Forensic genetics through the lens of Lewontin: population structure, ancestry and race

In his famous 1972 paper, Richard Lewontin used ‘classical’ protein-based markers to show that greater than 85% of human genetic diversity was contained within, rather than between, populations. At that time, these same markers also formed the basis of forensic technology aiming to identify individuals. This review describes the evolution of forensic genetic methods into DNA profiling, and how the field has accounted for the apportionment of genetic diversity in considering the weight of forensic evidence. When investigative databases fail to provide a match to a crime-scene profile, specific markers can be used to seek intelligence about a suspect: these include inferences on population of origin (biogeographic ancestry) and externally visible characteristics, chiefly pigmentation of skin, hair and eyes. In this endeavour, ancestry and phenotypic variation are closely entangled. The markers used show patterns of inter- and intrapopulation diversity that are very atypical compared to the genome as a whole, and reinforce an apparent link between ancestry and racial divergence that is not systematically present otherwise. Despite the legacy of Lewontin's result, therefore, in a major area in which genetics coincides with issues of public interest, methods tend to exaggerate human differences and could thereby contribute to the reification of biological race.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Celebrating 50 years since Lewontin's apportionment of human diversity’.

Race as technology and the carceral methodologies of molecular racialization

This article counters the view (albeit contested) of race as a natural empirical object with technology as a secondary, external entity applied to it. Instead, I posit race itself as a technology that is inherently discriminatory in motivation, design and function, as evident throughout its brutally effective history. Focusing on the post/genomic era, I consider contemporary forms of molecular racialization as the latest technological iteration of race as a disciplinary device. I characterize this biopolitical racial technology as operant through a carceral methodology in four stages: (a) the epistemological mutability of molecular racialization as reiterating the obscurantist claim of modern raciology to constitute a benign description of literal racial difference; (b) the ontological de-individualization of certain racial others as aggregated risky populations and legitimate targets of repressive management; (c) a predictive empiricism whereby molecular race is seen as indicative of potential behaviours that sanctions oppressive state interventions against specific populations; (d) a normative bioethical dissembling whereby state agencies' exploitation of target molecular racialized populations' vulnerabilities result in the debarment of proper ethical consideration and the right to justice. Drawing largely on criminal justice and immigration control examples, the article asserts that the carceral methodologies of molecular racialization demonstrate race as a repressive technology designed to (re)produce subaltern racial populations and propagate racism.

Ethics as Lived Practice. Anticipatory Capacity and Ethical Decision-Making in Forensic Genetics

Greater scrutiny and demands for innovation and increased productivity place pressures on scientists. Forensic genetics is advancing at a rapid pace but can only do so responsibly, usefully, and acceptably within ethical and legal boundaries. We argue that such boundaries require that forensic scientists embrace 'ethics as lived practice'. As a starting point, we critically discuss 'thin' ethics in forensic genetics, which lead to a myopic focus on procedures, and to seeing 'privacy' as the sole ethical concern and technology as a mere tool. To overcome 'thin' ethics in forensic genetics, we instead propose understanding ethics as an intrinsic part of the lived practice of a scientist. Therefore, we explore, within the context of three case studies of emerging forensic genetics technologies, ethical aspects of decision-making in forensic genetics research and in technology use. We discuss the creation, curation, and use of databases, and the need to engage with societal and policing contexts of forensic practice. We argue that open communication is a vital ethical aspect. Adoption of 'ethics as lived practice' supports the development of anticipatory capacity-empowering scientists to understand, and act within ethical and legal boundaries, incorporating the operational and societal impacts of their daily decisions, and making visible ethical decision making in scientific practice.

The evolution, devolution and distribution of UK Biometric Imaginaries

This article critically examines UK biometric policymaking by charting the bodies identified by the 2018 Home Office Biometric Strategy as playing key roles in the oversight of biometric data used in law enforcement and other related functions. The article argues that oversight actors are embedded in biometric imaginaries promoted by the UK Home Office and the devolved Scottish administration. By mapping oversight of UK biometrics policy together with developments in Scotland, the article challenges sociotechnical imaginaries studies which assume the power of national governments to project dominant, cohesive and instrumental visions. The article peels away that image to reveal UK biometric policy as located within a patchwork in which embedded commissioners, regulators and advisors challenge biometric imaginaries through interpretive flexibility and standpoint. By identifying technical, operational, legislative and ethical issues, these actors challenge the UK government imaginary and act as channels of critique between it and wider stakeholder communities. The article further challenges assumptions concerning the cohesion of national imaginaries by highlighting a diverging approach to biometric governance in Scotland. The article uses these observations to sketch a means to further characterise the notion of the biometric imaginary and to address biometric policymaking more widely.

Archives, promises, values: Forensic infrastructures in times of austerity

This article analyses the role of infrastructures in the ‘bioinformational turn’ in forensic science and examines processes through which evidence is constituted, validated or challenged in and through domains of expertise that engage different techniques, data, objects and knowledges through infrastructural arrangements. While the digitisation of the infrastructures that underpin forensic service delivery promised connectivity, prosperity and wellbeing, in reality it also brought forward new levels of risk and vulnerability, generating new tensions and frictions in the body politic. As genetic science reaches post-archival horizons through new genetic sequencing technologies, forensic science in post-archival times raises questions concerning the differential impact of the fragmentation of analytical and archival infrastructures and increasingly asynchronous bureaucracies whose role is displaced by the relative autonomy of datasets and computational architectures that elude governance, oversight and citizens’ scrutiny.

Civil society stakeholder views on forensic DNA phenotyping: Balancing risks and benefits

Forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) is an umbrella term for practices seeking to infer likely phenotypic characteristics based on crime scene DNA. Specifically, it is intended to help criminal investigators find an unknown suspected perpetrator by providing information about what the suspected perpetrator may look like based on the analysis of DNA left at the crime scene. While many purport the usefulness of FDP in this regard, its probabilistic nature, as well as its ability to disclose information about an individual that may be considered private raises a range of ethical and social concerns. This paper reports findings from interviews with thirty civil society stakeholders across nine European countries. Our findings reflect the wide variation of views in Europe regarding if, when and/or how the technology should be used in the criminal justice system, and we illustrate this by presenting the different ways in which our participants strike a balance between the potential usefulness of the technology, and the various ethical and social considerations.

What influences public views on forensic DNA testing in the criminal field? A scoping review of quantitative evidence

BACKGROUND

Forensic DNA testing is a powerful tool used to identify, convict, and exonerate individuals charged of criminal offenses, but there are different views on its benefits and risks. Knowledge about public views on forensic DNA testing applied in the criminal field is socially valuable to practitioners and policymakers. This paper aims to synthesize quantitative evidence about the factors that influence public views on forensic DNA testing in the criminal field. Based on a systematic search conducted in January 2019, a scoping review was performed, targeting studies presenting original empirical data that were indexed in Web of Science and PubMed. The two authors performed eligibility and data extraction.

RESULTS

The 11 studies were conducted mainly in European countries (Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland) and the remaining derived from the USA and New Zealand. Non-representative samples were mostly used to explore the benefits and risks of criminal DNA databases, criteria for insertion and retention of DNA samples and profiles, knowledge, willingness to donate a DNA sample, and custody. The value of forensic DNA databases in protecting society from crime was emphasized. Concerns about improper access to forensic genetic data and risks to civil liberties associated with its uses were expressed. The scarce literature on Forensic DNA Phenotyping and familial searching revealed the same trend of positively valuing forensic DNA testing. Only factors related with socioeconomic position were assessed by more than two studies. Results suggested that public views on forensic DNA testing are influenced by the level of education, age, and exposure to law enforcement occupations although not in a straightforward manner.

CONCLUSION

Further empirical research should assess standardized factors related with social and structural levels (e.g., scientific literacy, public trust in the justice system and concerns about victimization or police activity) and be performed in different national jurisdictions to enable generalization and comparison of findings. It is needed to expand empirical studies on public views about the commercialization of forensic science and the use of recent controversial techniques and new transparency and accountability models.