FC: South Carolina secretly creates children's DNA database

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Ick. Another example of why government privacy invasions are so chilling. 
--Declan]

---

From: "John Cieciel" <uselesseater () msn com>
To: "dec" <declan () well com>
Subject: State of mistrust
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 15:06:03 -0600

<http://www.goupstate.com/docs/Opinion/Editorials/5878.asp>http://www.goupstate.com/docs/Opinion/Editorials/5878.asp 



J. Cieciel

---

   Published: February 21, 2002
   State of mistrust
   South Carolina agencies continue to violate citizens' privacy. This
   time the state is distributing our children's DNA. Lawmakers need to
   institute firmer rules on the collection and distribution of
   individuals' personal information.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Once again South Carolina's state government has proven that it can't
   be trusted with the personal information it demands from its citizens.
   South Carolinians had hoped it was a fluke when the state sold the
   information on 3.5 million people's driver's licenses to a New
   Hampshire company without their permission or even notification.
   Citizens thought that the outrage from that incident surely would make
   state officials more responsible about how they handle the personal
   information citizens are forced to give the state.
   But last week South Carolinians learned that -- without their
   knowledge or permission -- the state had created a DNA library on our
   children. By law, babies are tested for specific genetic diseases
   after they are born. The state Department of Health and Environmental
   Control has been saving all of those samples since 1995 in a special
   deep freeze facility.
   State officials told us not to worry. These genetic blueprints of our
   children are safe with them. This information could not be misused.
   This week we learned that the information has already been misused.
   Without the permission of these DNA donors or their parents, the state
   has given some of the samples to a genetics laboratory and gave others
   to the State Law Enforcement Division to help start a DNA databank
   there.
   Are there any parents left who still trust the state with this
   information? It's not likely.
   Do South Carolinians want a genetics lab experimenting on their
   children's DNA? Did state officials ever think to ask? And what right
   does SLED have to include our innocent children's DNA in its databank?
   Legislative remedies for this problem have been discussed in Columbia.
   They range from the immediate destruction of the DNA samples held by
   DHEC to a system in which parents can instruct the state not to keep
   their children's samples. Clearly, the state must institute a process
   that -- at a bare minimum -- requires DHEC to get parental permission
   to keep the samples.

   [...]




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