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Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-s...ase-1514310353
China Snares Innocent and Guilty Alike to Build World?s Biggest DNA Database
Police gather blood and saliva samples from many who aren?t criminals, including those who forget ID cards, write critically of the state or are just in the wrong place
By Wenxin Fan and
Natasha Khan in Hong Kong and
Liza Lin in Qianwei
Updated Dec. 26, 2017 8:52 p.m. ET
QIANWEI, China?Schoolchildren in a bucolic region in western China famed for steam trains and jasmine flowers thought little of it when police interrupted classes and asked all the boys to spit into small plastic boxes.
They weren?t told why, according to the accounts of several children involved. From kindergartens through high schools, hundreds of male students were ordered to give enough saliva so that a filter paper inside each box turned from pink to white. The change indicated that the sample was sufficient for forensic scientists to extract the boys? DNA, or unique genetic fingerprint. It would also identify biological traits common to blood relatives of each child.
The police in Qianwei County say their plan worked. They hoped the operation would offer clues to the unsolved murder of two shopkeepers nine years before, and soon they celebrated the murderer?s capture in state media.
An added bonus: The police collected a lot more names they could add to the world?s biggest DNA database, an essential part of China?s high-tech security blanket being unfurled across the country as Beijing seeks to better monitor its 1.4 billion citizens...
China Snares Innocent and Guilty Alike to Build World?s Biggest DNA Database
Police gather blood and saliva samples from many who aren?t criminals, including those who forget ID cards, write critically of the state or are just in the wrong place
By Wenxin Fan and
Natasha Khan in Hong Kong and
Liza Lin in Qianwei
Updated Dec. 26, 2017 8:52 p.m. ET
QIANWEI, China?Schoolchildren in a bucolic region in western China famed for steam trains and jasmine flowers thought little of it when police interrupted classes and asked all the boys to spit into small plastic boxes.
They weren?t told why, according to the accounts of several children involved. From kindergartens through high schools, hundreds of male students were ordered to give enough saliva so that a filter paper inside each box turned from pink to white. The change indicated that the sample was sufficient for forensic scientists to extract the boys? DNA, or unique genetic fingerprint. It would also identify biological traits common to blood relatives of each child.
The police in Qianwei County say their plan worked. They hoped the operation would offer clues to the unsolved murder of two shopkeepers nine years before, and soon they celebrated the murderer?s capture in state media.
An added bonus: The police collected a lot more names they could add to the world?s biggest DNA database, an essential part of China?s high-tech security blanket being unfurled across the country as Beijing seeks to better monitor its 1.4 billion citizens...