PROJECT
The project “Legal, ethical and social challenges of the Forensic DNA Phenotyping in Italy (LetFor)” involves two research units in Italy. Lead partner is the Bologna unit with the participation of three different departments (Medical and Surgical Sciences, Legal Sciences, and Political and Social Sciences). The second operating unit is part of the Università Politecnica delle Marche and is based in Ancona.
Principal investigator is the Professor Susi Pelotti at the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the University of Bologna.
The Focus
The introduction of Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) technology into the criminal justice system has been the subject of numerous debates in Europe, within which, in addition to assessing its potential, legal, ethical and social considerations have been developed.
FDP is a set of techniques that aims to infer human externally visible features – eye, hair, and skin color – and biogeographical ancestry of criminal suspects by the analysis of the biological materials collected at crime scenes.
The most prominent concerns of the FDP are related to privacy, discrimination and interpretation of findings as well as other concerns relating to notions of resource allocation, utility, value and mis-use.
The actual level of Italian population’s knowledge on the use of FPD analysis for forensic purposes is still unknown, and the research to explore people’s knowledge and awareness about the risks and benefits of these technologies is needed in order to ensure a better interaction between policy makers and citizens. In Italy, not only FDP genetic data on population are lacking, but also a country- specific policy discussion and legislative proposal are not yet underway.
In the meantime, whether FDP is allowed and under what circumstances it can or cannot be used, needs to be inferred from a careful interpretation of laws on genetic testing from criminal justice, as well as other relevant laws considering also that ethical discussion regarding FDP use and regulation can be viewed as an “ethical moment”.
A wide variation of views in Europe about the introduction of the Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) technology in the criminal justice system was described, evaluating the potential usefulness of the technology, and the various legal, ethical and social considerations.
Starting from the international situation regarding to the scientific, ethical, social and regulatory aspects on the use of FDP for appearance, age, and ancestry prediction, and based on information and data collection from the literature, the project will be focused:
1) To verify the knowledge of the potential outcomes of FDP and to evaluate the awareness of Italian civil stakeholders about the benefits and risks of the FDP, considering the ethical, social and regulatory aspects of this new investigative tool;
2) To analyze more in-depth the constitutional and administrative issues deriving from the regulation of the DNA phenotyping;
3) To develop and validate genetic and epigenetic tools based massively parallel sequencing (MPS) technology for the combined analysis of FDP in the Italian population, still lacking FDP genetic data;
4) To analyze legal issue involving DNA data bases in FDP process;
5) To design an integrated interpretation framework including in a prototype software for combined statistical consideration of the age DNA information delivered, while responsibly considering a privacy-by-design approach.
The project contributes to develop Italian-specific recommendations implementing the FDP for forensic use in an ethical and societally responsible way.
Duration
24 months
Key words
- Human rights and discrimination
- Legal boundaries
- Forensic DNA Phenotyping
- Social and ethical challenges
- Italian stakeholders
- Legislative effort