Published: February 21, 2002

State of mistrust
South Carolina agencies continue to violate citizens' privacy. This time the state is distributing our children's DNA. Lawmakers need to institute firmer rules on the collection and distribution of individuals' personal information.

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Once again South Carolina’s state government has proven that it can’t be trusted with the personal information it demands from its citizens.

South Carolinians had hoped it was a fluke when the state sold the information on 3.5 million people’s driver’s licenses to a New Hampshire company without their permission or even notification. Citizens thought that the outrage from that incident surely would make state officials more responsible about how they handle the personal information citizens are forced to give the state.

But last week South Carolinians learned that — without their knowledge or permission — the state had created a DNA library on our children. By law, babies are tested for specific genetic diseases after they are born. The state Department of Health and Environmental Control has been saving all of those samples since 1995 in a special deep freeze facility.

State officials told us not to worry. These genetic blueprints of our children are safe with them. This information could not be misused.

This week we learned that the information has already been misused. Without the permission of these DNA donors or their parents, the state has given some of the samples to a genetics laboratory and gave others to the State Law Enforcement Division to help start a DNA databank there.

Are there any parents left who still trust the state with this information? It’s not likely.

Do South Carolinians want a genetics lab experimenting on their children’s DNA? Did state officials ever think to ask? And what right does SLED have to include our innocent children’s DNA in its databank?

Legislative remedies for this problem have been discussed in Columbia. They range from the immediate destruction of the DNA samples held by DHEC to a system in which parents can instruct the state not to keep their children’s samples. Clearly, the state must institute a process that — at a bare minimum — requires DHEC to get parental permission to keep the samples.

But state lawmakers must go further to restore public trust. They have to take a complete look at the personal information the state collects and compiles about its citizens and how it handles this information. They should make sure that state agencies don’t collect any more information than they need to conduct their business. And they should institute common-sense controls on how this information is disseminated.

South Carolinians are cringing, waiting for the next revelation of how their privacy was violated by the state. State leaders should take responsibility for these abuses and for making sure that no more occur.
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• Testing magistrates
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