Cold hit
Definition
A database match between a crime-scene DNA profile and an offender or arrestee profile where no other investigative lead identified the suspect. Cold hits produce an investigative lead, not a conviction: the match must be independently verified and the profile must be admissible.
Related terms
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA)
- India's current evidence statute, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 63 of the BSA governs electronic records and requires a...
- CODIS
- The FBI's Combined DNA Index System, the US national STR-based forensic DNA database. Contains profiles from convicted offenders, arrestees, and unidentified crime-scene...
- Familial searching
- The deliberate use of partial DNA profile matches in a forensic database to identify biological relatives of an unknown contributor, on the...
- Proportionality
- The legal principle, central to European human rights law and to many constitutional systems, that any interference with a fundamental right must...
- STR profile
- Short tandem repeat profile: the numerical representation of repeated DNA sequences at a defined set of loci, used to generate a forensic...
Explained in
- DNA Evidence: Legislation, Databases and PrivacyA database match between a crime-scene DNA profile and an offender or arrestee profile where no other investigative lead identified the suspect. Cold hits prod...