There’s another famous case that used MyHeritage, in violation of its terms of service: the Golden State Killer case - the case where IGG was first used in a criminal case. (Note, the legality of the IGG was never contested up in that case - I’m guessing because the defense figured it might lose that battle, as Westrom did, plus the prosecution was willing to negotiate the death penalty.)
For that case’s IGG, the team Paul Holes put together, which included himself, were new to IGG, but they had as their advisor IGG expert Barbara Rae Venter (experienced in DNA Doe cases, not criminal cases at that point.) The team had tried GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA but could only get to third cousin matches and were thrashing until...
Here’s Paul Holes description of how the process was going from his autobiographical book, “Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases,” from Chapter 25, “Joseph James Deangelo” - though he never mentions the MyHeritage terms of service violation:
“The trees grew to be huge. At one point we were researching sixty possible distant relatives and tracing their family trees all the way back to the 1700s. The closest we came was third cousins, more than a dozen, which wouldn’t bring us close enough for a manageable search. We were all getting frustrated. In February 2018, Barbara emailed Kramer and me. “We may have just caught a break.” She had used her personal account on MyHeritage.com and found a second cousin to the Golden State Killer. We were one generation closer and a giant step further in the search.”
I need to look into the IGG aspect of the GSK case more, but it was my impression that the ToS on the genetic genealogy websites didn't mention law enforcement at all, and the companies added clauses to their ToS following the news. Am I mistaken? I'll look into it more today.
I'm not sure. I say ToS violation because I thought the pre-GSK-arrest ToS for MyHeritage and all genealogy sites had, at least, a clause that the person submitting the profile be that person - or have authorization to submit it from that person whose profile was being submitted.
Can't say I've read MyHeritage's pre-GSK-arrest ToS to know exactly - so your question is a good one. Perhaps there's a LE loophole, somehow, but it doesn't seem like it - especially since Barbara Rae Venter was not LE.
It would be interesting to find out what information Barbara Rae Venter submitted to MyHeritage in association the GSK DNA profile. Any untruths submitted? False information would seemingly violate the ToS.
EDIT: After responding to your comment of mine, I got the idea to upload my DNA profile to MyHeritage.com. I’m currently going through the steps to Upload DNA data, and at a screen called, “Upload for personal use” which has a checkbox I need to check before proceeding further that says, "I confirm that the DNA data I'm uploading is not related to any law enforcement or forensic investigation.” I’d send a screenshot if there was a way to do that. Obviously what you’d now expect (post-GSK-arrest), but just letting you know I saw it with my own eyes.
I checked the MyHeritage terms and conditions through the Wayback Machine, which only has records back to November 8, 2018, months after DeAngelo's arrest. The clause is there: "You must not: Impersonate anyone else or otherwise misrepresent your identity or status."
I assume that clause existed before DeAngelo's arrest.
I did some double-checking of my own of my claim, earlier in this thread, that the IGG used in the arrest was never contested by the GSK defense team, though I vaguely remember it coming up during the early hearings (probably raised by reporters, pundits, and message board posters, but not the legal proceeding itself.)
I went to goldenstatekillertrial.com, where they made posts for everything that happened - after the arrest through the sentencing after Deangelo pleaded guilty (or admitted to the court for those crimes whose SoL had run out) to 88 charges. I did search goldenstatekillertrial.com for 'GEDMatch', 'genealogy', 'ancestry.com', and 'MyHeritage'. I only found a single match for for the first three that had nothing to do with the defense contesting it, so that's enough to convince me it wasn't contested.
Here we are, 1 year later. Courts docs unsealed.
Looks like you nailed it.
There’s another famous case that used MyHeritage, in violation of its terms of service: the Golden State Killer case - the case where IGG was first used in a criminal case. (Note, the legality of the IGG was never contested up in that case - I’m guessing because the defense figured it might lose that battle, as Westrom did, plus the prosecution was willing to negotiate the death penalty.)
For that case’s IGG, the team Paul Holes put together, which included himself, were new to IGG, but they had as their advisor IGG expert Barbara Rae Venter (experienced in DNA Doe cases, not criminal cases at that point.) The team had tried GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA but could only get to third cousin matches and were thrashing until...
Here’s Paul Holes description of how the process was going from his autobiographical book, “Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases,” from Chapter 25, “Joseph James Deangelo” - though he never mentions the MyHeritage terms of service violation:
“The trees grew to be huge. At one point we were researching sixty possible distant relatives and tracing their family trees all the way back to the 1700s. The closest we came was third cousins, more than a dozen, which wouldn’t bring us close enough for a manageable search. We were all getting frustrated. In February 2018, Barbara emailed Kramer and me. “We may have just caught a break.” She had used her personal account on MyHeritage.com and found a second cousin to the Golden State Killer. We were one generation closer and a giant step further in the search.”
Excerpt From
Unmasked
Paul Holes
https://books.apple.com/us/book/unmasked/id1586643024
I need to look into the IGG aspect of the GSK case more, but it was my impression that the ToS on the genetic genealogy websites didn't mention law enforcement at all, and the companies added clauses to their ToS following the news. Am I mistaken? I'll look into it more today.
I'm not sure. I say ToS violation because I thought the pre-GSK-arrest ToS for MyHeritage and all genealogy sites had, at least, a clause that the person submitting the profile be that person - or have authorization to submit it from that person whose profile was being submitted.
Can't say I've read MyHeritage's pre-GSK-arrest ToS to know exactly - so your question is a good one. Perhaps there's a LE loophole, somehow, but it doesn't seem like it - especially since Barbara Rae Venter was not LE.
It would be interesting to find out what information Barbara Rae Venter submitted to MyHeritage in association the GSK DNA profile. Any untruths submitted? False information would seemingly violate the ToS.
EDIT: After responding to your comment of mine, I got the idea to upload my DNA profile to MyHeritage.com. I’m currently going through the steps to Upload DNA data, and at a screen called, “Upload for personal use” which has a checkbox I need to check before proceeding further that says, "I confirm that the DNA data I'm uploading is not related to any law enforcement or forensic investigation.” I’d send a screenshot if there was a way to do that. Obviously what you’d now expect (post-GSK-arrest), but just letting you know I saw it with my own eyes.
I checked the MyHeritage terms and conditions through the Wayback Machine, which only has records back to November 8, 2018, months after DeAngelo's arrest. The clause is there: "You must not: Impersonate anyone else or otherwise misrepresent your identity or status."
I assume that clause existed before DeAngelo's arrest.
I did some double-checking of my own of my claim, earlier in this thread, that the IGG used in the arrest was never contested by the GSK defense team, though I vaguely remember it coming up during the early hearings (probably raised by reporters, pundits, and message board posters, but not the legal proceeding itself.)
I went to goldenstatekillertrial.com, where they made posts for everything that happened - after the arrest through the sentencing after Deangelo pleaded guilty (or admitted to the court for those crimes whose SoL had run out) to 88 charges. I did search goldenstatekillertrial.com for 'GEDMatch', 'genealogy', 'ancestry.com', and 'MyHeritage'. I only found a single match for for the first three that had nothing to do with the defense contesting it, so that's enough to convince me it wasn't contested.
Yeah, I've used MyHeritage and have also seen that prompt.
You're probably right that the user had to check a box acknowledging their identity back during the GSK IGG process. That makes two violations, then.
It seems increasingly likely to me that this is what happened here.