DNA Typing: A technology of fear

Abstract

The expansion of DNA databases in the United States, Europe and a few other countries to include not just convicted felons but arrestees, who might be innocent, raises a number of civil rights concerns. Sujatha Byravan explores how the use of DNA typing in forensics and immigration, given the current climate of fear, in the quest for a safer world, could legitimize discrimination and give rise to a new apartheid.