Genetics without borders

A UK government scheme to establish nationality through DNA testing is scientifically flawed, ethically dubious and potentially damaging to science.

Until a few years ago, the genetic variation of humans was understood only in terms of superficial characteristics, such as hair and skin colour. Today, thanks to the advent of cheap, fast genetic sequencing and DNA-microarray technologies, population geneticists can chart such variations in a more systematic way. Yet most experts agree that these studies are still in their infancy. So it was with understandable incredulity that researchers received a plan by the UK Border Agency to use genetics to determine nationality — specifically, the origin of asylum-seekers claiming to be from war-torn Somalia. The agency's pilot programme, which began last month, aims to determine whether some 100 individuals really are Somali nationals by checking them for the individual DNA variants known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in mitochondrial DNA, on the Y chromosome and elsewhere in the genome. The scheme will also use isotopic ratios of elements found in hair and fingernails — which can vary depending on a person's diet or environment — to try to establish where the migrants previously lived.