Ethics in Transnational Forensic DNA Data Exchange in the EU: Constructing Boundaries and Managing Controversies

Abstract

Under EU Law, Member States are compelled to engage in reciprocal automated forensic DNA profile exchange for stepping up on cross-border cooperation, particularly in combating terrorism and cross-border crime. The ethical implications of this transnational DNA data exchange are paramount. Exploring what the concept of ethics means to forensic practitioners actively involved in transnational DNA data exchange allows discussing how ethics can be addressed as embedded in the sociality of science and in the way scientific work is legitimated. The narratives of forensic practitioners juxtapose the construction of fluid ethical boundary work between science and non-science with the dynamic management of controversies, both of which are seen as ways to lend legitimacy and objectivity to scientific work.Ethical boundary work involves diverse fluid forms: as a boundary between science/ethics, science/criminal justice system, and good and bad science. The management of controversies occurs in three interrelated ways. First, through a continuous process of reconstructing delegations of responsibility in dealing with uncertainty surrounding the reliability of DNA evidence. Second, threats to the protection of data are portrayed as being resolved by blackboxing privacy. Finally, controversies related to social accountability and transparency are negotiated through the lens of opening science to the public.

Police epistemic culture and boundary work with judicial authorities and forensic scientists: the case of transnational DNA data exchange in the EU

“…By analogy, the concept of boundary work applied to police professionals working in the Prüm system allows understanding how they construct boundaries in relation to other professionals in order to demarcate their specific area of expertise. In the case of Prüm, the nature of the boundaries of knowledge flow and data circulation between different jurisdictions might be more complex than indicated by previous studies (Machado and Granja 2018;M'charek, Hagendijk, and de Vries 2013;Toom 2010, 2013). The concept of boundary work is therefore deployed throughout the article to shed light on how professionals involved in international police cooperation create, advocate and reinforce certain distinctions in relation to other professionals involved in transnational cooperation, such as the judicial authorities and forensic scientists.…”

“…The Prüm regime brings together a wide range of different professionals and a shifting set of relationships with data, technological infrastructures, operational procedures, and criminal justice systems that support the circulation of information (M'charek, Hagendijk, and de Vries 2013). Hence, the Prüm system involves the interaction of various epistemic cultures and professional practices, entailing both cooperation and coordination, in addition to enacting the differences and divisions between the different social actors in the criminal justice system (Machado and Granja 2018).…”

Forensic Genetics and Governance of Transnational Criminality

“…Some of these preliminary analyses have inspired recent empirically based studies on Prüm. One of such studies explores what "ethics" means to forensic practitioners actively involved in transnational DNA data exchanges under the Prüm system (Machado & Granja, 2018). Based on interviews with Prüm NCPs, the authors demonstrate that such professionals face a wide variety of ethically significant issues.…”

The Sociological Gaze

“…After "stabilizing" the credibility of DNA profiling technologies, it was possible to store the DNA profiles in vast computer databases and disseminate them among the different social actors in the justice system, locally, nationally and internationally. Nowadays, DNA profiles can be shared and compared between different laboratories, provided that they use the same computer system and have adopted the same protocols (Aronson, 2007(Aronson, , 2008Machado & Granja, 2018;Santos, 2017).…”

“…7 of this book. When knowledge is transformed into a quantitative format, it is easier for that knowledge to "travel" outside the place where it was produced and being appropriated or used by other social actors (Machado & Granja, 2018)-in other words, through quantification, forensic geneticists can assume that the knowledge produced in a specific location follows "universal" guidelines that can be replicated by different people in different locations and reach the same results, thereby obtaining a kind of "local universality" (Timmermans & Berg, 1997).…”