Another concern is hacking or theft. Ancestry and similar companies take steps to protect customers’ information, such as using barcodes rather than names and encryption when samples are sent to labs. Nevertheless, there was an incident in 2017 in which hackers infiltrated a website owned by Ancestry called RootsWeb.

The primary disadvantage of DNA fingerprinting is that it is not 100% accurate. Contamination, falsification, and chain of custody concerns still exist with this technology. Even improper testing methods may create false positive or false negative results.

The most common causes of failures related to the laboratory process were contamination and human error. Most human errors could be corrected, whereas gross contamination in crime samples often resulted in irreversible consequences. Hence this type of contamination is identified as the most significant source of error.

• they rely on mini satellite repeats (10-60 bp) that can be long, so more difficult to work with.
• they require large amounts of undegraded dna.
• they analyze multiple loci all at once, making it difficult to distinguish different alleles from each other.

The DNA testing process is comprised of four main steps, including extraction, quantitation, amplification, and capillary electrophoresis.

DNA fingerprinting is a laboratory technique used to establish a link between biological evidence and a suspect in a criminal investigation. A DNA sample taken from a crime scene is compared with a DNA sample from a suspect. DNA fingerprinting is also used to establish paternity.

The main types of DNA fingerprinting methods in use at this time are:

• RFLP. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analyzes the length of the strands of the DNA molecules with repeating base pair patterns.
• PCR.
• AmpFLP.
• STR.

Modern-day DNA profiling is also called STR analysis and relies on microsatellites rather than the minisatellites used in DNA fingerprinting. Microsatellites, or short tandem repeats (STRs), are the shorter relatives of minisatellites usually two to five base pairs long.

DNA fingerprinting is a chemical test that shows the genetic makeup of a person or other living things. It’s used as evidence in courts, to identify bodies, track down blood relatives, and to look for cures for disease.

For example, from a hair left behind at the crime scene and from the blood of victims and suspects. They then narrow in on the stretches of repetitive DNA scattered throughout these samples.

Practical Applications of DNA Fingerprinting

• Paternity and Maternity. Because a person inherits his or her VNTRs from his or her parents, VNTR patterns can be used to establish paternity and maternity.
• Criminal Identification and Forensics.
• Personal Identification.

DNA fingerprinting is also known as DNA profiling. It is a technique based on the individuality of DNA molecules, and is used to identify and analyze the variations in different individuals. An individual’s DNA characteristics, called DNA profile is determined.