Australian state government outsources forensic DNA testing

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a DNA-related story from my neck of the woods:

CRIMINAL DNA testing will be outsourced to a private company in an attempt to clear a backlog of thousands of police samples at NSW government laboratories and keep up with rapidly growing demand.

The company, Genetic Technologies, will be paid up to AU$5 million (US$4.4 million) to use its automated genotyping facilities - endearingly referred to in the article as "CSI-style robotic technology"! - to help break the 12-month back-log of samples building up in police facilities.

The out-sourcing is part of a AU$22 million four-year plan to boost forensic DNA analysis capacity in the state. It sounds as though they've left it a little late:

A NSW Ombudsman's report, from October 2006, warned that DNA analysis was not meeting its potential. The number of samples sent for testing rose from 1046 in 2000 to 9113 in 2004, causing a backlog of more than 7000 cases.

[...]

The report, quietly released last January, also found at least 13 cases in which identities had been muddled. In one, a man was jailed for break and enter but was adamant that he had not committed the offence. He provided another sample and was released.

An over-stressed system will always make mistakes. Of course, it's far from clear that exporting the problem into the private domain will prevent these mistakes from occurring in the future. Instead, there's a danger that it will simply reduce transparency and accountability, and increase the risk of privacy issues.

Ultimately, the success of this strategy will depend on the NSW government successfully instituting appropriate procedures to minimise these dangers - and given the track record of the NSW government in other areas this seems like a rather forlorn hope.