Interpol database to identify missing persons through family DNA
Interpol Secretary-General Jurgen Stock.
What you need to know:
- Over the years, families of a missing person face continued distress from not knowing where their loved one is, often waiting for years for news.
Kenyan families with missing kin can now check if they died abroad by contributing their DNA profiles to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
Interpol has launched a global database for identifying missing persons around the world dubbed I-Familia that will be used to match families’ DNA profiles with those of unidentified bodies through DNA kinship matching.
According to the agency, the database will attend to the rising global concern about the number of missing and unidentified persons in the wake of increased international travel, global migration, organised crime, conflicts and natural disasters.
Over the years, families of a missing person face continued distress from not knowing where their loved one is, often waiting for years for news.
“Depending on the legislation in their countries, families might not be issued with a death certificate, which can have administrative and economic complications,” Interpol notes on its website.
With I-Familia, however, the agency will help solve cold cases of missing persons by matching the Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the person’s kin with that of unidentified human remains in the event that direct comparison is not possible as with cases where the unidentified person’s bodies have decomposed and where bones are found without their flesh.
Interpol Secretary-General Jugen Stock notes that all countries have unsolved missing persons’ investigations as well as human remains that cannot be identified using their national systems alone.”
“I-Familia is a humanitarian tool which, enabled by Interpol’s global reach, opens up vast new possibilities to identify missing persons and to provide families with answers,”Mr Stock said during the database's launch on June 1.
He added that I-Familia provides “the necessary” international mechanism to allow missing persons DNA data to be compared globally.
Many notices
By late 2020, over 12,000 active yellow notices (International Police Alerts for missing persons.
It is published for victims of parental abductions, criminal abductions (kidnappings) of unexplained disappearances) had been issued by the Interpol general Secretariat.
Since 2004, Interpol has been conducting direct matching of DNA results of unidentified persons against its 247,000 profiles provided by 84 member states that has helped investigators around the world to link offenders to different types of crimes, including rape, murder and armed robbery.
The profiles are held by a reference number provided by the member country, which does not include nominal details of the owners.
The agency also holds a database for unidentified human remains.
With I-Familia, Interpol will receive DNA profiles from families in member countries, which the agency says will be held separately from criminal data.
“Biological relatives share a percentage of their DNA, depending on their relationship. In the event that a DNA sample from the missing person cannot be obtained for direct matching, DNA from close family members (parents, children, siblings) can also be compared. This is where I-Familia is set to make a difference,” the agency adds.
The samples will be matched using a DNA software called Bonaparte and the results interpreted under Interpol guidelines to “efficiently identify and report potential matches”.
Interpol says families will be required to give consent for their data to be used for international searches and that member countries will retain ownership of the DNA profiles submitted.
Families of missing persons and missing persons’ associations who are interested in contributing family DNA samples for matching via I-Familia can do so by contacting their local police, who will link them with the country’s Interpol National Central Bureau.
