Paul Ellenbogen will present his Pre-FPO,  "Long range familial searches of genetic databases: New techniques and policy implications" on Tuesday, September 17, 2019 in CS 402 at 2:30pm.

The members of his committee are as follows: Arvind Narayanan (adviser), Ed Felten, Jonathan Mayer, Mona Singh, and Olga Troyanskaya.

Everyone is invited to attend his talk.  The talk title and abstract follow below.

 "Long range familial searches of genetic databases: New techniques and policy implications"

Abstract:
Consumer genetics databases hold dense genotypes of millions of people,
and the number is growing quickly. In 2018, law enforcement agencies
began using such databases to identify anonymous DNA via long-range
familial searches. I show that this technique is far more powerful if
combined with a genealogical database of the type collected by online
ancestry services. I present a “genealogical triangulation” algorithm
and study its effectiveness on simulated datasets. I show that for over
50% of targets, their anonymous DNA can be identified (matched to the
correct individual or same-sex sibling) when the genetic database
includes just 1% of the population. I also show the effectiveness of
“snowball identification'” in which a successful identification adds to
the genetic genealogical database, increasing the identification
accuracy for future instances.

I next turn to the policy implications of recent advances in familial
searches, including the novel technique that I developed. I compare
commercial databases to existing law enforcement databases. The
existence of commercial databases and new familial searching requires
new regulations. I argue for warrant requirements for law enforcement
use of familial search against commercial databases. I also argue that
websites that allow for user uploads must cryptographically verify the
authenticity of those uploads to prevent re identification attacks.