A/HRC/15/26 • Index • Evidence recovered from crime scenes • Convicted • Human remains of disappeared persons • Relatives of disappeared persons. 30. The national database of genetic profiles for use in judicial investigations has all of the safeguards required to guarantee the following: the information and records are confidential; storage, access and use are restricted; the chain of custody of the samples is controlled in accordance with the legislation currently in force; data are disaggregated, meaning that unique codes are assigned to each processed sample and entered into the database; the genetic information obtained from the samples is used only for identification purposes; queries are answered only by the competent authorities; and sample collection is carried out in full compliance with fundamental rights and due process as per the legislation currently in force, with informed consent consistent with bioethics regulations governing studies carried out on human beings. B. Framing the context and primary components of a text on forensic genetics and human rights 31. The past two decades have shown the clear limits of trying to identify the remains of victims of human rights violations or missing persons from internal conflicts or wars, using only background, medical and dental ante-mortem records. In this sense, forensic genetics have a crucial role to play, drastically increasing the possibility of identifying many more remains and thus providing solace to families of victims and evidence to ongoing and/or future prosecutions. 32. Advances in technology have allowed large-scale genetic projects aimed at identifying victims of human rights violations to be conducted. 33. Creating databanks of relatives of disappeared people is crucial to conducting largescale identification projects that can take place simultaneously or in the future. The more complete the databank of relatives of victims, the greater the chance of identifying remains that are found and are thought to correspond to a victim of a human rights violation or a missing person from a conflict. 34. Creating such databanks will also enable identifications in the future, as more grave sites are discovered, whether or not information from all relatives is available. Having the support of associations of relatives of disappeared and missing people is also crucial. 35. Establishing a genetic databank also requires clear provisions about, for example, its goals, restrictions in use, expectations, consent, confidentiality, and procedures to be used. Consequently, the goals and limitations need to be very clear when creating a genetic databank of relatives of disappeared and missing victims, and must be publicly stated from the start. The goal of such databanks, for example according to EAAF, need to be strictly limited to the identification of remains of victims of specific events, which should be outlined from the start. Any further use - even scientific use of the genetic data or samples not related to identification purposes - should not be permitted or should require the written consent of the sample donors. Commercial use of genetic information should never be part of the goals of such databanks. 36. Databanks should also establish whether they will only collect samples or will also process them and compare them with genetic information from victims’ remains. In other 10