Do forensic genetic markers disclose more information about us than they should? (A review)

The 20 established STRs that make up the CoDIS package must comply with national and international privacy rights and legal policies. Current research reveals that it is possible that certain genetic markers, used in forensic contexts, may show information about other neighboring markers that could reflect certain private characteristics of individuals. Therefore, we will aim to find out, through a literature review, whether there may indeed be associations between some of the STRs alleles established by CoDIS and medical and phenotypic conditions, with the aim of checking whether this problem has a real basis. To carry out this review, a systematic search has been carried out in different databases, as well as a critical evaluation of the articles collected and a synthesis of all the relevant studies. The results generally show that private phenotypic data of the individual can be known from certain STRs established by CoDIS, due to their association with neighboring genes. However, most of the papers state that practically none of the established associations offer proof of causality, but rather a relationship between some STRs and a phenotype.