A federal judge unsealed the source code for a software program that was used to compare DNA samples in New York City’s crime lab.
In July 2016, Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York determined in U.S. v. Johnson that the source code of the Forensic Statistical Tool, a genotyping software, “is ‘relevant … [and] admissible’” at least during a Daubert hearing—a pretrial hearing where the admissibility of expert testimony is challenged. Caproni provided a protective order at that time.
This week, Caproni lifted that order after the investigative journalism organization ProPublica filed a motion arguing that there was a public interest in the code. ProPublica has since posted the code to the website GitHub.
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