{"id":310214,"date":"2026-07-30T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310214\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:22:08","slug":"civil-rights-groups-back-federal-suit-against-nypds-suspect-dna-index","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310214\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil rights groups back federal suit against NYPD’s ‘Suspect DNA Index’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three civil rights groups on Thursday filed a joint amicus brief<\/a> in the Legal Aid Society\u2019s federal class action suit against New York City and several top officials across the New York City Police Department and the city\u2019s chief medical examiner, claiming that the DNA database the city\u2019s agencies have built using surreptitiously collected discard items is unlawful.<\/p>\n

The brief, which was filed jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, supports the Legal Aid Society\u2019s challenge to the \u201cSuspect DNA Index,\u201d a database run by the city\u2019s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that feeds on DNA collected by the NYPD.<\/p>\n

The Legal Aid Society\u2019s suit<\/a>, which has been ongoing since 2022, alleges that the NYPD has gathered the DNA of more than 54,000<\/a> unknowing New Yorkers over the last decade, often from discarded items \u2014\u00a0used cups, tissues or cigarette butts \u2014 used during interrogations or investigations. The data has been indexed it in a database used to compare evidence taken from other investigations.<\/p>\n

The database includes those who haven\u2019t been charged with, much less convicted of, a crime. The class action suit was originally filed on the behalf of the nearly 32,000 individuals who had DNA taken without their knowledge, including plaintiff Shakira Leslie. Leslie was arrested in New York City in 2019 following a traffic stop in which a gun was found in the vehicle and all inside were arrested.<\/p>\n

According to the suit<\/a>, NYPD officers deprived Leslie of food and water for several hours at the precinct. When she was offered water in a disposable cup, officers allegedly told her that \u201cit would be some time before she had another opportunity to drink.\u201d After drinking from the cup, the NYPD pulled her DNA from that cup, developed a profile from it and stored it in the database, the suit claims.<\/p>\n

The Legal Aid Society\u2019s case argues that the \u201crogue<\/a>\u201d DNA database violates state law<\/a>,\u00a0which mandates that the New York\u2019s State DNA Identification Index be the state\u2019s only such index. The law also sets limits on whose DNA can be collected, when and for what purpose. It also sets retention and deletion requirements. And because the NYPD\u2019s index was not created via legislation or other outside authorization, the case argues, there\u2019s insufficient accountability for potential abuses.<\/p>\n

The suit argues that the Suspect Index violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant. Because DNA is a highly sensitive and private information, individual privacy regarding personal details like ancestry, family relationships and propensities for serious medical conditions, and much more, are also put at risk.<\/p>\n

When combined with other data, DNA can also expose potentially damaging information, such as previously unknown family histories of adoptions, misattributed paternity, early mortality or substance abuse disorders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government cannot treat our DNA like it treats our garbage, and seize, search, and store it without a warrant,\u201d Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU\u2019s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a news release. \u201cUsually we rely on hypotheticals to highlight the dystopian possibilities of this kind of privacy invasion, but no hypothetical could be more troubling than New York City\u2019s actual practice: amassing thousands of people\u2019s DNA without their knowledge, their consent, or any court-ordered or legislative guardrails. If the Second Circuit does not intervene, all I can say is: New Yorkers, hold on to your trash.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Keely<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Keely Quinlan
\n\t\t\tKeely Quinlan reports on privacy and digital government for StateScoop. She was an investigative news reporter with Clarksville Now in Tennessee, where she resides, and her coverage included local crimes, courts, public education and public health. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Stereogum and other outlets. She earned her bachelor\u2019s in journalism and master\u2019s in social and cultural analysis from New York University.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three civil rights groups on Thursday filed a joint amicus brief in the Legal Aid Society\u2019s federal class…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25931,62870,89852,44436,28138,9,117336,11,10,49,51,50,29799,33711],"class_list":["post-310214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aclu","tag-biometric-privacy","tag-cato-institute","tag-data-analytics","tag-dna","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-police-department-nypd","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-nyclu","tag-the-legal-aid-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}