Biometrics use raises civil liberties concerns

BY LACEE SHEPARD
Capital News Service
LANSING – A recent U.S Supreme Court decision on DNA testing has raised concerns among civil liberties advocates about the use of biometrics in police work. In Maryland case, a suspect was arrested and had his cheek swabbed to collect a DNA sample. After the sample connected him to rape case, he was convicted of that crime instead of the unrelated assault charge he was arrested on. “They took the guy’s DNA sample under the impression that they needed to ID and fingerprint him,” said Devin Schindler, a constitutional law professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Grand Rapids. “They tested his DNA sample against the database and found he was a suspect in a rape case.”