Who's In NYC's DNA Database? NYPD Still Refuses To Say: Advocates

NEW YORK CITY — NYPD officials have stubbornly refused to tell New Yorkers key information about what people are in a controversial DNA database for three years and counting, advocates charged Monday.

A scorching condemnation from The Legal Aid Society advocates Monday called on police brass to immediately — and finally — release demographic information about the database.

The database contains DNA profiles from more than 32,000 people, but New Yorkers still don't know their ages, gender and ethnicity, despite NYPD officials' promise three years ago to release that information, said Phil Desgranges, supervising attorney with Criminal Defense Practice’s Special Litigation Unit at The Legal Aid Society.

“The NYPD promised to be transparent about what groups have been targeted under its DNA collection program, but it continues to keep the public in the dark,” he said in a statement.

“We can only wonder what the NYPD has to hide here and whether - based on the Department’s past practices - Black and Latinx New Yorkers make up the overwhelming number of people who have had their DNA secretly collected and stored in the City’s database."

An NYPD spokesperson responded to Patch's request for comment by touting "meaningful reforms" in DNA collection policies, including periodic, publicly available reports on the database.

Those reports, however, are all one-page documents that only provide bare-bones details centering on the total of DNA profiles and how many have been recommended for removal.

The spokesperson said demographic information is unknown "significant percentage" of the database's DNA profiles, which go back to the 1990s.

"Based on our preliminary review, where the demographics are known, the demographics of the profiles that were removed correlate with the historical demographics of crime suspects, where the race of the suspect was reported by a complainant, as well as the demographics of crime victims," the spokesperson said in a statement. "The NYPD has developed a process to improve the tracking of demographic data for new profiles going forward."

Advocates have long raised concerns about the DNA database.

Last year, advocates filed a class action complaint that argued the database is illegal and challenged NYPD detectives' practice of secretly obtaining DNA samples by offering people in interrogation rooms drinks and cigarettes.

“Thousands of New Yorkers, most of whom are Black and brown, and many of whom have never been convicted of any crime, are illegally in the City’s rogue DNA database, which treats people as suspects in every crime involving DNA,” Desgranges said in a statement at the time.