Cold Case Inquiries Hampered After Ancestry.com Revisits Terms of Use
nytimes.com In August, Ancestry revised the terms and conditions on its site to make it
clear that its services were off-limits "for law enforcement purposes"
without a legal order or warrant
a legal order or warrant ... can be hard to get,
because of privacy concerns.
A warrant can be hard to get if police do not provide sufficient cause or are asking for and excessively broad scope.
The difficulty level of getting a warrant goes way, way down when police submit the information the judge needs to properly evaluate it.
But police really really prefer to search without agreeing to boundaries. Including cold case officers, it seems.
“Everyone who does this work has depended on the records database
that Ancestry controls,” said David Gurney, who runs Ramapo College’s
Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center in New Jersey.
“Without it, casework is going to be a lot slower,
and there will be some cases that can’t be resolved at all.”
People who don't even think about getting consent are poor choices to be in positions of power or accountability.