ABSTRACT
This chapter discuses the issue of emerging forensic technology, with greater focus on how the wider societal impact of such developments may be comprehended. This includes a focus on the perceived ethical implications of forensic DNA technologies. The chapter outlines the historical development of the Police National DNA Database(NDNAD), of England and Wales drawing attention to the role played by policing and legal contingencies. It indicates how the NDNAD can be thought of as evolving via a combination of technical, policing and legal circumstances. The chapter then discuses two methods, familial searching and DNA phenotyping, which also exploit the investigative potential of DNA. It considers the consequences such technologies could potentially hold for societal attitudes. This leads on to a discussion of how such technologies are ethically framed. Biolegality studies have described relations between law, science and society as unfolding in contingent ways.
