Why solving cold case killings just got much harder for police | CBC News
Ancestry.com’s new ban on police use of DNA data raises cold‑case solving woes.
In January 2026, CBC reported that Ancestry.com now blocks law‑enforcement DNA searches without a court order, making the search for killers in decades‑old murders tougher. The ban means police can no longer tap the site’s 28 million DNA profiles, forcing them to rely on slower, free‑to‑access sources. Since the Golden State Killer’s 2018 breakthrough, genetic genealogy has helped solve over 1 400 cold cases, but the new restriction will lengthen investigations. A stark example is Erin Gilmour’s 1983 murder; after 14 219 days, Toronto police used DNA and family‑tree links to arrest Joseph G. Sutherland in 2022, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2024. Ontario’s privacy commissioner issued 12 guardrails in June 2025 to regulate police use of genealogy data.
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