You can conjure many insane possibilities in a future unknown.
DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those traits can be more heavily scrutinized and surveiled. Or have their employment opportunities limited.
DNA could be multiplied and planted as evidence.
DNA could be cloned, or used in scientific testing without consent.
DNA could be used for targeted biological warfare.
People leave traces of DNA everywhere they go. Who knows what type of detection mechanisms will exist in the future?
There's also the very likely scenario that a central database like this becomes a prime target and leaks. It's borderline guaranteed.
While racism is definitely a thing today, it seem to be dying. Slowly, but the trend is certain: modern society is way less racist than it was, say, a century ago (or worse, a few centuries ago). People stop caring about ethnic origins. The care about cultures and nationalities those days (notice how even the meaning of "racism" had shifted to account for this), and those are rapidly becoming less and less correlated with genetics.
While people won't stop being xenophobic (unless, idk, some miracle or catastrophe happens), in the modern world, when it comes to identity, genes are rapidly losing battle to memes.
> DNA could be used for targeted biological warfare.
I'm no biologist, but I've heard that ethnic bioweapons (in a way portrayed in science fiction or conspiracy theories) are basically a myth and/or convenient propaganda fuel.
Read The White Plague by Frank Herbert. Scared the heck out of me as a teen. Considering how humanity still hasn't escaped tribalism even after two hundred millennia, just the thought of genealogically targeted viruses are a wonderful thought.
I'm far from a biologist as well but we're talking about an unknown future. We're entering an era of personalized medicine. Maybe you can't target an ethnic group but you could target a specific person. You could theoretically poison the water in a whole city to target one person. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
> DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those traits can be more heavily scrutinized and surveiled. Or have their employment opportunities limited.
I don't think you need to consider other possibilities, this is a good enough example. And unfortunately it is not insane in the sense of paranoid, because this is what Nazis would be doing with it. Or NK jailing entire families for one member's crimes but basing it on DNA matches.
TL;DR - Pasco County in Florida was using "predictive policing", where based on various statistics, they would predict who would commit crimes and harass the ever-loving shit out of them until they moved out of the county.
Most sci-fi stories involving human cloning that cover legal aspects seem to predict that laws will be updated to account for a possibility that crime was performed by a clone. Laws tend to lag behind technologies, but not too drastically.
It's also much cheaper to just fabricate evidence (cf. XKCD #538 aka $5 wrench vs security). Worked well since time immemorial, and doesn't leave a clone.
DNA could be tested for traits that are "more likely to cause criminality". People with those traits can be more heavily scrutinized and surveiled. Or have their employment opportunities limited.
DNA could be multiplied and planted as evidence.
DNA could be cloned, or used in scientific testing without consent.
DNA could be used for targeted biological warfare.
People leave traces of DNA everywhere they go. Who knows what type of detection mechanisms will exist in the future?
There's also the very likely scenario that a central database like this becomes a prime target and leaks. It's borderline guaranteed.