The police say they need the database to catch criminals and that donors consent to handing over their DNA. Some officials within China, as well as human rights groups outside its borders, warn that a national DNA database could invade privacy and tempt officials to punish the relatives of dissidents and activists. Rights activists argue that the collection is being done without consent because citizens living in an authoritarian state have virtually no right to refuse.
"The ability of the authorities to discover who is most intimately related to whom, given the context of the punishment of entire families as a result of one person's activism, is going to have a chilling effect on society as a whole," said Maya Wang, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch.
"The campaign even involves schools. In one southern coastal town in China, young boys offered up their tiny fingers to a police officer with a needle. About 230 miles to the north, officers went from table to table taking blood from schoolboys while the girls watched quizzically."
With regards to the last paragraph, I remember as a kid in NYC the cops came around to the second graders showing off their fingerprint toolkits and all the kids would give their prints.... I was luckily no there that day, so I "missed" that opportunity 😏
Read the whole article on the NYTimes: China Is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Men and Boys, Using U.S. Equipment
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