As companies like Ancestry DNA, 23andMe, and other genetic testing sites are being offering their services to the public, more and more individuals are taking the opportunity to learn more about their ancestry and finding new relative every day -- including the police. Recently, the sacramento police department where able to identify a potential suspect for the Gold State Killer, by using a preserved sample from a rape kit, police were able to create a fake account on a genealogy site. This lead to the arrest of Mr. DeAngelo.
In cases like this, it is hard for emotions and opinions to become high strong and spread out across the board. Many participate in these find new familial relations and to learn more about their ancesteries - not for the police to use their information to catch potential murders and rapist. While, I can understand why many would find the police using these websites to find offsetting and an invasion of privacy, when you share your private information to public websites(that do not voluntary give out your information), you are, in hence, waving goodbye to your privacy in my opinion. Personal, I am very emotional when it comes to issues like this and if genetic testing could be used to find the person who murdered or raped my loved one, I would be thankful.
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If the terms and conditions claim that your information will not be shared or sold to outside sources, then legally that information should be protected from any and all outside sources. But did the murder/rapist respect the privacy of their victims? I believe that their needs to be a balance on what information is shared with whom. Genetic testing and genealogy sites should not be allowed to sell or share information to the public, but I do believe that a strict relationship with law enforcements, along with proper guidelines and protocols, could bring resolution to many