Overview

• Georgetown’s Center on Privacy & Technology, using CBP records from 2020–2024, found citizen profiles were uploaded to CODIS even when no criminal charges were filed.
• At least 95 of those citizens were minors, with some as young as 14, and agents sometimes listed civil infractions or left the charges field blank.
• DHS has added roughly 2.6 million profiles to CODIS since 2020, with about 97% collected under civil authority rather than through criminal arrests.
• The surge followed an April 2020 DOJ rule ending a waiver on DNA collection from immigration detainees and FBI approvals enabling Rapid DNA processing at booking stations.
• Oversight concerns persist as the DHS Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel cite compliance failures, Senator Ron Wyden seeks answers, and federal officials pursue new Rapid DNA deployments.