People Called Out Edmonton Police For Racism After They Used DNA To Create Suspect Sketch

Edmonton Police is facing backlash online for what some are calling racial profiling after they released an image of a suspect in a sexual assault case that was put together using DNA testing some are calling "highly controversial."

Police have since apologized for the DNA Phenotyping, and said that the technology "does raise concerns about profiling of a marginalized group."

In a statement, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) said it was the first time they have ever used a type of testing called "DNA phenotyping" to build an image to help identify the suspect from a case dating back to 2019.

The case

In March 2019, police responded to reports of a woman who was "violently sexually assaulted" by an "unknown male" in a field surrounding St. Basil and Spruce Avenue schools.

Shortly after the incident, EPS asked for information about the suspect, who was described as being 5’4” and wearing a black toque, pants and sweater or hoodie. He was also described as having an accent.

After a long investigation with "no witnesses, CCTV, public tips or DNA matches," EPS said they brought in the DNA technology company Parabon NanoLabs, who use DNA phenotyping technology to predict the physical appearance and ancestry from "unidentified DNA evidence."

"Individual predictions were made for the subject’s ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, freckling, and face shape. By combining these attributes of appearance, a 'Snapshot' composite was produced depicting what the POI may have looked like at 25 years old and with an average body-mass index of 22," the police said.

However, the police also noted that "environmental factors" such as smoking, drinking, diet and other non-environmental factors like facial hair, hairstyles and scars aren't able to be predicted by DNA analysis and could cause more variation between the suspect's predicted and actual appearance.

Online backlash

After releasing the image, EPS has faced backlash online, with many accusing the police of racial profiling.

What is DNA phenotype technology?

Joshua Stein, a postdoc at Georgetown University whose research includes medical ethics, told Narcity that DNA phenotype technologies are generally used to produce predictions on things like skin and eye colour based on probabilities but early-stage research on facial structure is "highly controversial."

Stein said EPS had presented the full face of a suspect despite there being "no information given on how the face was constructed."

Even with aspects such as skin and eye colour, predictions are made "within a range of probabilities" and so it might not be an accurate representation, he added.

"Because of the probabilistic nature of the assessment, the snapshot can be used as justification to treat as a person of interest basically any man who fits the existing description which is just a pretext for racial profiling," Stein said.

Stein also said the company behind the technology – Parabon NanoLabs – has "repeatedly refused" to subject the technology to scientific peer review.

In a phone interview with Narcity, Dr. Ellen Greytak, Snapshot division technical lead at Parabon NanoLabs, confirmed that the technology had not been peer-reviewed but said the company was as transparent as it could be with their "trade secret technology."

Greytak also disputed claims that the technology was enabling racial profiling and said the company is "just predicting factual information" about who someone is based on their DNA.

She went on to state that the Snapshot is, "the same as if a witness gave a description of that person. You wouldn't accuse that witness of racial profiling because of their description of that person," she said.

In terms of the technology, Greytak said the company had studied "thousands of people's faces" and that the snapshots are trying to predict overall how someone's face may look relative to the "baseline face of the same sex and ancestry."

Edmonton Police apologize

In an additional statement, Enyinnah Okere, the chief operating officer for the Community Safety and Well-being Bureau of EPS, said they "were not and are not oblivious to the legitimate questions raised about the suitability of this type of technology."

The potential for a visual profile to provide a "far too broad a characterization from within a racialized community" – in this case, Edmonton's Black community – was not something that was "adequately considered," Okere added.

"I prioritized the investigation – which in this case involved the pursuit of justice for the victim, herself a member of a racialized community, over the potential harm to the Black community. This was not an acceptable trade-off and I apologize for this," they said.

The statement added the visuals of the suspect would be removed immediately as well as images from social media and that police would review their internal processes.