Pre-registration has to do with sorting between profiles that can be adopted into the database and which cannot. The secretary adheres to a strict legal framework when it comes to the identified peoples profiles, but switches to practical reasoning when sorting the crime scene profiles. These are often too damaged or mixed to be useful for the police. Depending on the severity of crime, the profiles are adopted or dismissed. In the second work area of DNA2005, a second secretary double-checks the accepted profiles from the first secretary. The third area HIT pre-registration is where the police officers evaluate the hits that DNA2005 finds. This work is likewise checked by another police officer (fourth work area) before the hit is communicated to the forensic institute for a scientific evaluation. While the evaluation is underway, the hits are stored in the fifth work area and only after they are approved are they communicated out to the local police where the crime was committed. Every night around 2AM, DNA2005 automatically starts comparing the latest DNA-profiles with the entire DNA database. Within seconds it has completed its task and identified up to a hundred hits. Its search is It numerically “democratic”. knows nothing about skin color or cases or even the difference between peoples’ profiles and the ones from crime scenes. It simply compares everything new to everything old and reports the resulting hits. But the computer program does not only present the to the head of the DNA section, the “perfect hits”. According program is set It is programmed to present profiles that fall within a “loosely up”. margin of error. The reason this margin of error exists is that DNA analysis at the forensic institute sometimes is disturbed by chemicals or substances from textiles or that there is DNA from more than one DNA in the sample. person’s “We need human eyes on the profiles if we program DNA2005 too tightly, we end up … missing some of DNA section). hits” (Head What is apparent in this story is that there is a concern about human bias built into the infrastructure, which is obvious in the double checks. These checks are likewise found at the forensic institute where all tests are done by two separate teams with separate laboratories in order to eliminate the possibility of
Pre-registration has to do with sorting between profiles that can be adopted into the database and which cannot. The secretary adheres to a strict legal framework when it comes to the identified peoples profiles, but switches to practical reasoning when sorting the crime scene profiles. These are often too damaged or mixed to be useful for the police. Depending on the severity of crime, the profiles are adopted or dismissed. In the second work area of DNA2005, a second secretary double-checks the accepted profiles from the first secretary. The third area HIT pre-registration is where the police officers evaluate the hits that DNA2005 finds. This work is likewise checked by another police officer (fourth work area) before the hit is communicated to the forensic institute for a scientific evaluation. While the evaluation is underway, the hits are stored in the fifth work area and only after they are approved are they communicated out to the local police where the crime was committed. Every night around 2AM, DNA2005 automatically starts comparing the latest DNA-profiles with the entire DNA database. Within seconds it has completed its task and identified up to a hundred hits. Its search is numerically “democratic”. It knows nothing about skin color or cases or even the difference between peoples’ profiles and the ones from crime scenes. It simply compares everything new to everything old and reports the resulting hits. But the computer program does not only present the “perfect hits”. According to the head of the DNA section, the program is “loosely set up”. It is programmed to present profiles that fall within a margin of error. The reason this margin of error exists is that DNA analysis at the forensic institute sometimes is disturbed by chemicals or substances from textiles or that there is DNA from more than one person’s DNA in the sample. “We need human eyes on the profiles … if we program DNA2005 too tightly, we end up missing some hits” (Head of DNA section). What is apparent in this story is that there is a concern about human bias built into the infrastructure, which is obvious in the double checks. These checks are likewise found at the forensic institute where all tests are done by two separate teams with separate laboratories in order to eliminate the possibility of