UK-Developed 'DNA Spray' Marks Dutch Thieves With Trackable Water

eldavojohn writes "In Rotterdam, there's a new technology in place that dispenses a barely visible mist over those around it and alerts the police. The purpose? To tag robbers and link them back to the scene of the crime. From the article, 'The mist — visible only under ultraviolet light — carries DNA markers particular to the location, enabling the police to match the burglar with the place burgled. Now, a sign on the front door of the McDonald's prominently warns potential thieves of the spray's presence: "You Steal, You're Marked."' Developed in Britain, it's yet to nab a criminal but it will be interesting to see whether or not synthesized DNA will hold up as sufficient evidence in an actual court of law." So it's not just for copper thieves.

Re:But why ?

[EdZ]

I've seen stickers in buildings 'armed' with this stuff since the early 90s (my old primary school used it, it came in little bottles with a felt applicator, and the stuff dried out almost instantly so opening one resulted in a mad rush to tag everything). Generally, the idea was not to tag burglars, but instead to stick a dab onto valuable equipment. Because vanishingly few burglars would bother to go over stolen goods with a UV lamp looking for a little glowing patch, and even fewer would then go and acquire the solvents required to remove all traces of the stuff, it generally sticks around better than a simple unpeelable sticker or sand-able etched number. If it got stolen and subsequently recovered, it could then be definitively traced back to a crime. Makes prosecution easier, and helps with insurance (and even getting your stuff back if you can definitively prove it's yours).

Re:that is a one-time success

[Shimbo]

they will have to change the DNA marker after one use....Also checking for duplicate natural DNA

Smartwater [wikipedia.org] uses various methods to encode a unique signature. No actual DNA is involved.

Re:But why ?

[AlecC]

Thieves wear hoods, motorcycle helmets, stockings... Alarms go off so often that responses are slow, if at all: a burglar can be in and out long before the alarm is responded to,

Since the spray is highly personalized, you can shine an ultra-violet light on a suspect - which they will have difficulty objecting to - and trace them back to a crime for which you may not even have suspected them. If it is the case, as commonly alleged, that the majority of crime is committed by a small number of people, then you may well be able to nab them for crimes for which you have not (yet) suspected them when you question them for a different crime.

That said, I always have my suspicions of such "miracle inventions". It is worth a try - I look forward to seeing how it works out in practice.

Old news is old

[fridaynightsmoke]

I first heard of this stuff about 10 years ago, under the name "SmartWater" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartWater [wikipedia.org]

IIRC it won some kind of 'Millenium Award' in 1999 or 2000

Re:Water?

[AmiMoJo]

Why not just buy some of this spray, covertly spray some around a jewellery shop and then report them to the police for handling your stolen property?

Most thieves either get caught at the scene or they get away and the police eventually track them down much later. After multiple showers and scrubbing I doubt that there would be enough of this stuff left to get a positive DNA match. Don't forget that the police have lied about the accuracy and reliability of DNA. The Omagh bombing trial collapsed because the DNA "amplification" technique was shown to be unreliable and because it threw up two matches from the database anyway which implies that the odds of a match are much lower than the 1 in 100,000,000 they were claiming.

You could probably just buy some of this stuff and then apply it to yourself. There would be little chance of getting a reliable clean sample.

Sounds like snakeoil to me.

Re:Water?

[Stooshie]

" ... plus of course they don't put a big sticker on the outside of marked objects to warn you ... ".

Err, yes the do. RTFA and see the big orange sign.

Also, DNA can degrade fairly quickly if it is not part of a living cell and there are many chemicals that can break DNA down.

! DNA

[arth1]

As far as I can tell, it's not only not new, but it also has nothing to do with DNA. The marker is either a unique proportion of certain non-evaporating particles, or small engraved chips with a number on them.
DNA has nothing to do with this, even in an abstract sense -- it is not self-replicating, and certainly not biological.

Re:Water?

[beh]

I would guess, the product in question is http://smartwater.com/ [smartwater.com]

Living in the UK a few years back, I had started using it to mark belongings of mine, after a friend working for the police recommended it.

The stuff is almost transparent - but, when I applied it to a grey camera lens - it's still easily visible on it -- on black or white lenses it's not much of a problem.

On the greyish lens, I tried to wash it off - and have found that I couldn't (wet wipes, ...).

The stuff sticks fairly well - I can't even say I managed to get a noticable amount of it off.

As far as marking belongings goes - you literally only need a very small spot of it; and you can pick some place where it isn't too obvious. On my Nikon lenses, I sometimes put the spot on the 'o' in the Nikon logo. Trying to get this off would probably seriously (cosmetically) harm the lens; scratch off part of the logo - and the resale value will drop massively: No point trying to call it 'near mint condition' afterwards.

Under UV light, the spot is easily visible - under normal light, it's near invisible.

From another friend who works as a shop fitter for jewellers, he's tried it in alarm systems, and he told me, that it will take a few days/weeks before you get all of it off (i.e. small amounts still lodged in skin pores are almost impossible to get out easily).

Silly Slashdot crowd even goes for the buzzwords

[bluefoxlucid]

This shit doesn't contain "DNA," it contains a chemical sequence that's sufficiently unique. They say "DNA" because DNA is so variant no two people who aren't clones (such as twins) have the same DNA. But it catches idiots with buzzwords.