That's why best practices for human studies is to manage projects like this in the context of an Institutional Review Board. It's required for "federally funded projects, clinical trials, and those who seek publication in peer-reviewed journals." (quoting http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/07/22/cr... ).

It's not required for a company, but if it doesn't exist then I think it's okay to assume that they are not following the highest ethical guidelines.

Back in 2010, the company "23 And Me" caused an uproar because they were gathering data without an IRB. They instead got a post-hoc review when, during a publication peer review, they were asked about the missing IRB. Their board said basically that since the data isn't traceable to an individual, it falls outside of the requirements for an IRB.

People are still pissed off about this. See http://scientopia.org/blogs/drugmonkey/2013/02/21/plos-genet... . I agree - the IRB exception must be done before the data is gathered, not afterwards.

Your comment got me thinking.

What is to prevent someone from dumpster diving to collect dna?

While that dna is anonymous if anything interesting turns up in the dna it would be possible to trace it back to the owner with some certainty because if it was, say, at a restaurant you could (assuming the use of credit cards, security cameras) be tied to patrons of that restaurant or workers. And at that point you could triangulate enough to have a reason for further investigation and/or get warrants for things. Perhaps (ianal).

Taking this further how would something like that be viewed? I'm curious to what extent that would be viewed as unethical (in the US SCOTUS already has said you can pick through trash). So it appears to be legal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_of_privacy

> What is to prevent someone from dumpster diving to collect dna?

In general? Nothing. The only prohibitions I know of are the ones I mentioned (related to scientific research), plus some prohibitions related to the use of DNA to affect insurance or employment.

I can't easily predict what the future might bring. Science fiction stories have postulated that a police officer might use some sort of sequencing device to vacuum a place to see who was there recently. To be countered by someone releasing dust/cells picked up from public transport seats.

My guess though is that it will be acceptable. Just like state camera surveillance is acceptable.

Human IRBs are all hung up on informed consent.

That's quite a nice trick, do you have any source for this? I couldn't find any.

Wow, do you have a article link for that "rounding up criminals" story?

http://www.tdcaa.com/node/1542 - "Police trick leads to clearing of 129 warrants"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiLX4bkKguA - video of several arrests using said premise.

Thanks for posting that. After reading the reply above yours I just spent 5 minutes searching in vain and nothing came up. I neglected to use the word "trick" in my search. Thanks for getting me out of the loop I was in trying to find this.