But its not being argued on that angle, its being argued on a 4th amendment angle. If it were being argued on that angle, why not also scrutinize the state fingerprinting labs on that same argument? They don't get that scrutiny though. It's just mainly a fear of DNA technology owing to privacy concerns, not really due to concerns that the sample could be crosscontaminated or that the labs aren't qualified to perform the work. Neither were mentioned in the article anyhow, just the 4th amendment angle.

I looked into this a bit some time ago, and fingerprint matching is significantly more error-prone and "fuzzy" than DNA matching. In that sense the argument against fingerprint databases is, IMHO, a lot of better than that against DNA databases.

There are some other differences too though: you're much more in control over where you leave your fingerprints than where you leave your DNA and fingerprints are not connected to your relatives. Not leaving any traces of your DNA is essentially almost impossible.

What concerns me that is people might be hesitant to do this blood screening for their newborns if they were ever involved in a crime, even a minor one, which would negatively impact their (innocent) newborns. With fingerprints you can be reasonably sure you didn't leave them with pretty basic precautions, and you don't need to fear your children's fingerprints fingering you in the first place. With DNA that's quite different.

So I'm not so sure the trade-off is worth it here, except for some of the most serious crimes.

Appeals to ignorance or bad intentions are not good arguments to do away with a good system that simultaneously leads to improved public health and rapists in jail IMO. If people are avoiding it and its leading to poorer outcomes for those newborns with criminal parents, then all the more reason to make this sort of screening mandatory, much like how its a good idea to mandate vaccinations even if it steps on the toes of the poorly informed in the process.

I don't think it's an "appeal or ignorance" at all. Furthermore, the story has an example of DNA from a rapekit being used to solve a years-old burglary. That doesn't strike as a good trade-off to me.

The parents may no longer be criminals; they may have done a few stupid things when they were 18 or whatnot. Not excusing it, but also don't need to go above and beyond any lengths to solve these comparatively minor crimes: literally no one is served by that: not the victims of the crime, not society, and certainly not their children. In more serious crimes, it may be worth the trade-off – that I why I used the qualifier "except for some of the most serious crimes".

> make this sort of screening mandatory, much like how its a good idea to mandate vaccinations even if it steps on the toes of the poorly informed in the process.

It's not realistic this will be enacted any time soon, if ever, and any proposal needs to take this political reality in to account.

Police can't figure out your parent's fingerprint from looking at your fingerprint. Only 4 states collect fingerprints from driver's licenses; California does so only to do a background check for certain kinds of vehicle industry occupational licensing.

Also applying for a license means you are at or approaching the age of majority. Either you are applying for a license knowing that you once did a crime, or you're doing a crime knowing you once submitted a fingerprint for a license. That's very different from having your blood sampled as a newborn, and most people assume their health information had privacy protection.

Apples and oranges are both fruits, but they're not interchangeable.

Sure, that wasn't mentioned in the article because it's not specific to DNA tests, but all tests.

The difference with DNA is that the genetic data has a ton of info associated with it, and that in this case it was collected for healthcare purposes. Fingerprints don't carry sensitive health data. The arguments are different.

The health data is not being used for criminology purposes. Only the pattern of the DNA so yes its like using the pattern of your fingerprint or even your iris or other sources of unique biologically identifiable material you have on your person.

Did you read what you wrote? The pattern is the health data...