Thematic Section: Nanotechnology, Ethics and Development

Development (2006) 49, 28–32. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100294

DNA Typing: A technology of fear

Sujatha Byravan

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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.

Keywords:

criminal justice, DNA database, immigration, race, discrimination, genetic surveillance