Data Retention Regulations in the Lords

[Alan Braggins]

2009/3/30 Roland Perry <lists@internetpolicyagency.com>:
> In article <200903300831.n2U8Viou048210@dm-holland-02.uk.sun.com>,
> Casper.Dik@sun.com writes
>>
>> While DNA itself is a blueprint of a single individual and, of course, 1%
>> of the population has a genetic twin,
>
> Would it help if the people who have such twins are marked in the database?
> Then 99% of the queries could say "ah - this is likely to be a unique
> fingerprint" while the other 1% will say "hang on a minute, we have two
> people this might be - was it 2 year old or a 50 year old that robbed the
> bank?"

Twins are generally the same age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twins#Statistics says 1.9% though, not 1%.

(As for marking people who aren't twins but have duplicate results for
the subset of DNA tested, that only helps if all of them have been
tested and put in the database.)

-- 
alan.braggins@gmail.com
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~armb/