There are several signs like the one above hanging in my local shopping street in Amsterdam. They signify that the surrounding area is protected by DNA spray. Stores such as my supermarket the Albert Heijn have installed sprayers so that when a robbery occurs the robbers will be sprayed by synthetic DNA.
The DNA is invisible to the naked eye but lights up under UV light (leading to subsequent exposure under the backlight of the Amsterdam club scene I expect). The DNA can not be removed but instead degrades around a week after the spraying. Robbers can easily be found and identified and by comparing the DNA evidence it can be established that you were at the robbery.
Powerful and scary stuff. Dutch company SelectaDNA makes the technology and says it costs around 1700 Euro for a store to implement the technology. You can see a video (in Dutch) below.
Around a minute in you can see the effects of the DNA spray under UV light.
why not using just a red paint spray? do they need to play some csi game? quite ridiculous invention…
I’m not so sure. I think its scary but it could be very helpful in court cases. But, time will tell.
Extra points if the DNA is designed to make them develop glow-glands on their skin upon exposure so they either get caught faster or become highly popular on the club-scene.
Seriously though, this is both clever and a little OTT. Not to mention it only reinforces the generally accepted stereotype of DNA-as-hard-evidence, even though DNA evidence can and should only ever be used as secondary evidence.
In this case at least it’s only secondary evidence. They’re not checking a database of everyone on the planet to find matches, they’re finding a suspect and then testing for the spray as an afterthought to add confirmation. Overall it strikes me as a good idea.
But, I think a lot of people consider DNA evidence infallible. Thanks to CSI its considered definitive proof. So I think in Jury countries at least this kind of think would not be considered secondary.
nothing would stop them going through a window instead though