This FBI Database Made DNA Science a ‘Factory’ vs ‘Boutique’

FBI’s DNA database that enables state and local crime labs to compare data electronically has been key part of more than 700,000 law enforcement investigations it has supported since its creation in 1998, said Tony Onorato, chair of the FBI’s Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods, at last week’s Identity Week America Summit in Washington, D.C.

As DNA’s role in biometrics expands amid technology advancements, coordinating and organizing massive amounts of data between federal entities becomes its own challenge.

Onorato described how the database, called Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), revolutionized how law enforcement officials integration DNA in the investigation process.

Before the database, DNA was only used at the end of process because it was labor intensive and expensive. CODIS enabled DNA collection at all levels of government into a unified place, which gave law enforcement access to millions of profiles in a shorter amount of time.

“When CODIS became a DNA tool, it industrialized what we were doing in the crime laboratory with respect to DNA,” Onorato said. “That was the watershed moment. That was when the focus, the resources, created the DNA science as a factory as opposed to a boutique.”

The database collects data from local crime labs before reaching state levels. After the state level, national labs make the data accessible and available across the country.

“At the state and national levels there are searches being made across the different indices, and those indices are simply the partitions into which certain kinds of DNA profiles are put,” Onorato said. “The power of this system is amazing, and it has allowed the DNA sciences to impact the criminal justice system from the start of an investigation to the adjudication process.”

Onorato said since CODIS’ creation, the database has ingested over 25 million profiles across the country from forensic evidence and offenders and has aided over 700,000 investigations.

Kelli Tippett, laboratory director of the Forensic Services Division at the Secret Service and on detail with the Office of Biometric Identity Management, said DNA offers a consistent biometric profile that doesn’t change with age.

“It’s the same profile from birth to death. It’s the same profile no matter what body fluid you’re looking at, so we can build our database off of that and know we’re going to have consistency and confidence throughout a person’s life,” Tippett said.

Tippett noted its usefulness in situations like postmortem identification, land rights, fraud and disaster scenarios, and pointed to case studies in human trafficking, California and Hawaiian wildfires, and credit card scams to demonstrate its effectiveness.

“One of the great things is that the storage size of that biometric is small. It’s just a series of numbers. It’s very easy to transfer that data between organizations, between agencies, between countries and be able to share that biometric very easily,” Tippett said.