Context: Recently, a draft report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology on the DNA Bill has stated that some alarming provisions in the bill could be misused for caste or community-based profiling.
Concept of DNA Profiling

• Deoxyribonucleic acid, commonly known as DNA, is the hereditary complex molecule present in humans and almost all other organisms.
• Nearly every cell in a multicellular organism possesses the full set of DNA required for that organism. Most DNA molecules consist of two bio polymer strands coiled around each other to form a double helix. The two strands are called polynucleotides since they are composed of simpler monomeric units called nucleotides.
• Each nucleotide is composed of one of four chemical bases: cytosine (C), guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T).
• It also has a sugar called deoxyribose and a phosphate group. These nucleotides create proteins that is needed for the cell.
• DNA contains all of the information necessary to build and maintain an organism including biological information.
• Although 99.9% of human DNA sequences are the same in every person, some of the DNA is unique that makes it possible to distinguish one individual from another.
• DNA can be extracted from the saliva, hair, blood samples, any small amount of the muscles or tissues of a person, nail scraping.
• DNA’s molecular structure was first identified by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953. They won the nobel prize for the same in 1962.
• With time, DNA technology evolved and in 1984, Bristish scientist Sir Alec John Jeffrey discovered the modern technology of DNA profiling.
• DNA Profiling is the process of determining an individual characteristic and most commonly used as a forensic technology to identify a person.

Background

• The Bill seeks to control the use and application of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology for establishing the identity of certain categories of persons, including offenders, victims, suspects and under-trials.
• The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Bill of 2019 was introduced in and passed by the Lok Sabha in January 2019, but lapsed before it could be taken up by the Rajya Sabha.
• It was later referred to a parliamentary standing committee for examination.

Key Points

• The committee headed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has been scrutinizing the DNA Bill.
• The Bill allows DNA sampling and profiling of citizens accused of crime or reported missing and storing their unique genetic information for administrative purposes.
• The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Act, 2019, has been in the works for 15 years now. 
• Many countries have enacted similar legislation with the U.S. bringing in a law as far back as in 1994.

Concerns raised by the committee

• Can reveal extremely sensitive information: DNA profiles of an individual containing sensitive information such as pedigree, skin colour, behaviour, illness, etc, can be misused to specifically target individuals and their families with their own genetic data. 
• Can target a particular community: This is particularly worrying as the sensitive information could be used to incorrectly link a particular caste/community to criminal activities.

Threat to an individual’s privacy

• The Bill proposes to store DNA profiles of suspects, undertrials, victims and their relatives for future investigations. 
• Though this will help in identifying repeat offenders, this may pose a threat to an individual's privacy.

Cursory consent

• If a person is arrested for an offence carrying up to seven years imprisonment, investigation authorities must take the person’s written consent before taking the DNA sample. 
• But a magistrate can easily override consent. The bill is silent on grounds and reasons when the magistrate can override consent.
• The Bill permits retention of DNA even if conviction of the offender has been overturned. 
• Independent scrutiny must be done of the proposals to destroy biological samples and remove DNA profiles from the database. 
• Storing DNA profiles for civil matters: But without a clear and separate index. It also violates the fundamental right to privacy and does not serve any public purpose.
• Premature legislation: As in the absence of robust data protection legislation, the security of DNA profiles placed with the National DNA Data bank and its regional centres is questionable.

Need for the Bill to be passed urgently

• To enable identification of missing children: As per the National Crime Records Bureau, annually 1,00,000 children go missing. 
• Help in identifying unidentified deceased: Including disaster victims and apprehend repeat offenders for heinous crimes such as rape and murder. 
• Expand DNA testing in India: Which is currently being done on an extremely limited scale in India (only 2-3% of the total need). 
• Will help in monitoring and regulating the standards of the laboratories.

DNA Technology (Use And Application) Regulation Bill, 2019

• Objective: Also known as the DNA profiling bill, explores the use of DNA technology to establish the identity of missing persons, victims, offenders, under trials and unknown deceased persons. 

Salient features of the Bill

• To establish a national data bank and regional DNA data banks.
• Envisages that every databank will maintain indices like the crime scene index, suspect’s or undertrial’s index, offender’s index, missing person’s index and unknown deceased person’s index.
• To establish a DNA Regulatory Board: Every laboratory that analyses DNA samples to establish the identity of an individual, has to be accredited by the board.
• A written consent by individuals: Be obtained before collection of their DNA samples. 
• However, consent is not required for offences with punishment of more than seven years in jail or death.
• Removal of DNA profiles of suspects: On the filing of a police report or court order, and of undertrials on the basis of a court order. 
• Profiles in the crime scene and missing persons' index will be removed on a written request.

Global Scenario Regarding DNA Profiling

• According to US Interpol’s Global DNA Profiling Survey Results 2016, as many as 69 countries have a national DNA database, including the USA, Canada and China.
• The countries hold genetic information of at least 35,413,155 individuals.
• Different countries have different regulations for collection, removal and retention of DNA samples.
• Declaration on Human Genetic Data, which was adopted unanimously at UNESCO's 32nd General Conference on 16 October 2003, aims to ensure the respect of human dignity and protection of human rights and fundamental freedom in collection, processing, use and storage of human genetic data and biological samples.
• Genome India Project (GIP): Recently, the Ministry of Science and Technology also approved an ambitious gene-mapping project called the Genome India Project (GIP) which aims to sample and sequence 10,000 genomes in the first phase from across India, to arrive at a representative Indian genome.
• Gene Mapping is different from DNA profiling as DNA profiling uses small stretches of DNA to identify an individual while gene mapping involves sequencing the whole genome. Gene Mapping is done for scientific and medical uses while DNA profiling is done primarily for forensic and criminal investigation.

Road Ahead

• Although DNA can be an important tool in solving crimes, using DNA effectively during criminal investigations requires proper crime scene examination, trained and reliable policing, a trusted chain of custody of samples, reliable analysis, and proper use of expert evidence in court.
• Thus, oversight of both laboratory quality assurance and crime scene examination need to be ensured. Also, keeping the civilian and criminal DNA Database separate is necessary.
• Prior adoption of a privacy or data protection bill would allow individuals some recourse if their rights were not protected.This is particularly important, especially following the Supreme Court’s Right to Privacy judgment.
• The government also needs to do a cost-benefit analysis as creating large databases is often not a cost-effective way to solve more crimes, and limited resources must be targeted effectively.