US Federal Court ordered to provide source code for DNA analysis software

US Federal Court ruled on the need to provide the defendant with the source code of the software TrueAllele , which was used to analyze DNA traces of a suspect in a serious crime … The court agreed with the position of the lawyers, who argued that the software used in the collection of evidence may contain errors that could distort the results and lead to the conviction of an innocent person. Therefore, the lawyers insisted on giving them access to the code of the DNA analysis program for an independent audit.

Initially, the prosecution and the manufacturing company Cybergenetics refused to provide the code under the pretext of maintaining a trade secret, but the court decided that the right of the accused to challenge the evidence provided and the danger of false conclusions about a crime due to errors in complex software overrides commercial interests, and decided to provide the source texts to the defense. The code was provided on a nondisclosure basis, but in the past there was a similar incident and after the defense was able to find several flaws in the software, the court reviewed the decision and approved the publication of the code for a public audit.

/Media reports.