What Is the DNA Identification Act of 1994?

The DNA Identification Act of 1994 is the federal law that authorized the FBI to create and maintain a national database of DNA profiles for law enforcement, established quality standards for forensic laboratories, set criminal penalties for misuse of genetic data, and created federal grants to build state and local DNA analysis capacity. Enacted as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, it is the legal foundation of the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS. As of November 2025, CODIS holds over 19 million offender profiles and has assisted in more than 758,000 investigations.¹

What the Act Authorized

The Act, codified at 34 U.S.C. § 12592, authorizes the FBI Director to establish an index of DNA identification records for law enforcement purposes.² That index operates in three tiers. The National DNA Index System (NDIS) sits at the top and allows participating laboratories across the country to exchange profiles. Each state runs a State DNA Index System (SDIS) that collects data from labs within its borders. Local DNA Index Systems (LDIS) feed profiles up from county and municipal labs.³

Because every participating lab uses the FBI’s protocols and compatible testing methods, a profile uploaded by a local crime lab in one part of the country can be searched against records held anywhere else that participates.

Whose DNA the Database Contains

The 1994 statute originally focused on two categories: DNA records from convicted offenders and DNA profiles recovered from crime scene evidence where the source is unknown.² The offender records let investigators check crime scene evidence against known people. The forensic profiles serve a different purpose: they can link separate crime scenes to each other, revealing a pattern before anyone is identified.

Congress has since expanded the categories through amendments. The database now also includes:

DNA from people arrested, charged, or indicted, added through amendments including the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005.⁴
DNA recovered from unidentified human remains.
DNA profiles from missing persons.
Samples voluntarily provided by relatives of missing persons to help with identification.⁵

By November 2025, NDIS held more than 19.2 million offender profiles, 6.1 million arrestee profiles, and roughly 1.4 million forensic profiles from crime scenes.¹ Samples voluntarily submitted solely for elimination purposes cannot be included in NDIS.⁶

Quality Standards for Participating Labs

The Act requires the FBI Director to establish quality assurance standards that every participating laboratory must follow. To develop the initial standards, the statute created a federal DNA Advisory Board of scientists from state, local, and private forensic labs, population geneticists, and a representative from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.⁷ The Board had a statutory life of five years; after it expired, the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (SWGDAM) took over the role of recommending revisions.

The current standards, effective July 2025, cover analyst qualifications, equipment calibration, evidence handling, and data security. Labs must be accredited by a nationally recognized nonprofit forensic science organization and undergo external audits at least once every two years.⁸ A lab that falls short risks losing its ability to upload profiles to NDIS and its eligibility for federal grant funding.

Privacy Protections and Criminal Penalties

The Act distinguishes two kinds of misconduct involving DNA data. An insider with access through their job who knowingly discloses individually identifiable DNA information to an unauthorized person faces a fine of up to $100,000, with no imprisonment.⁹

An outsider who, without authorization, knowingly obtains DNA samples or individually identifiable DNA information from a federal law enforcement database faces a fine of up to $250,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both.⁹

The statute also limits who can access DNA records and for what. Records may be disclosed to criminal justice agencies for identification during investigations, used in judicial proceedings where the evidence is otherwise admissible, and provided to criminal defendants for use in their own defense.¹⁰ DNA data may also be used for population statistics, identification research, protocol development, and quality control, but only after all personally identifiable information has been stripped out. A state or agency that fails to comply with the FBI’s quality control and privacy requirements can lose its access to the index entirely.

One boundary worth naming: forensic genetic genealogy, the technique used in the Golden State Killer case, operates outside CODIS. Under a Department of Justice interim policy, information derived from genealogy database searches cannot be uploaded to, searched in, or retained in any CODIS index.¹¹

Expungement of DNA Records

Because the database now includes people arrested but never convicted, the statute requires a path for removing profiles when charges do not result in a guilty finding. For federal arrests, the FBI Director must promptly expunge a profile from the index when the Attorney General receives a certified copy of a final court order showing that the charge was dismissed, resulted in an acquittal, or that no charge was filed within the applicable time period.⁶

For state arrests, the same conditions apply as a condition of the state’s continued access to NDIS. The responsible state agency must expunge a profile when it receives a certified final court order establishing dismissal, acquittal, or failure to file charges. A court order is not “final” for expungement purposes while time remains for an appeal or an application for discretionary review.⁶

States receiving federal grants for arrestee collection programs must also give written notification of expungement rights to every person whose DNA is collected, publish eligibility criteria and instructions on a public website, and decide all expungement requests within 90 days.¹² In practice, the individual or their attorney usually has to obtain and submit the certified court order, so some eligible people never get their profiles removed simply because they don’t know the option exists.

How Later Laws Expanded the Original Act

The 1994 framework has been reshaped by later legislation, each amendment broadening the system:

The DNA Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 created the Federal Convicted Offender Program (later the Federal DNA Database Unit) and added expungement requirements for individuals whose convictions were overturned.⁴
The Justice for All Act of 2004 required NDIS-participating labs to be accredited and expanded federal qualifying offenses to include any federal felony. It also authorized the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program, which funds states to review old cases where DNA evidence might prove actual innocence.⁴
The DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005 extended DNA collection to people arrested under federal authority and to non-U.S. persons detained by the federal government. It also broadened the expungement rules to cover people whose charges were dropped, never filed, or resulted in acquittal.⁴
The Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010 offered financial incentives to states that adopt arrestee DNA collection. States implementing a minimum collection process for serious violent crimes receive a five percent increase in Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding; states with an enhanced process covering additional offenses like burglary and aggravated assault receive a ten percent increase.¹³
The Rapid DNA Act of 2017 authorized criminal justice agencies to use FBI-approved Rapid DNA instruments to generate profiles for NDIS at booking stations, bypassing the traditional laboratory process. A Rapid DNA instrument can generate a usable profile from a cheek swab in under two hours, and an arrestee’s DNA can be searched against every unsolved crime in the database within 24 hours of booking.¹⁴¹⁵

Federal Grant Programs Under the Act

The Act’s grant authority has grown into several distinct funding streams. The largest is the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program under 34 U.S.C. § 40701, which funds state and local efforts to analyze DNA samples and reduce testing backlogs. Eligible uses include processing convicted offender and arrestee samples for upload to CODIS, analyzing crime scene evidence with priority given to sexual assault kits, increasing laboratory capacity, and auditing untested sexual assault evidence in government custody.¹⁶

To receive Debbie Smith funding, a state or local government must submit a plan for expeditious DNA analysis, certify that all analyses will comply with the privacy requirements of 34 U.S.C. § 12592, and show that its laboratories prioritize samples from homicides and sexual assaults. Grant recipients must also specify how they will allocate funds among processing offender samples, analyzing crime scene evidence, and building laboratory capacity.¹⁶

The Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, created by the Justice for All Act of 2004, is a separate stream. It funds states to review old cases involving violent felony convictions where DNA evidence might demonstrate actual innocence, covering the costs of locating biological evidence from those cases and performing new DNA analysis.

1
Federal Bureau of Investigation. CODIS-NDIS Statistics
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 12592 – Index to Facilitate Law Enforcement Exchange of DNA Identification Information
3
National Institute of Justice. Forensic DNA Education for Law Enforcement Decisionmakers – CODIS Hierarchy
4
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Timeline of FDDU Legislation and Milestones
5
Federal Bureau of Investigation. CODIS and NDIS Fact Sheet
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 US Code 12592 – Index to Facilitate Law Enforcement Exchange of DNA Identification Information
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 12591 – Quality Assurance and Proficiency Testing Standards
8
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories
9
GovInfo. 34 USC 12592 – Index to Facilitate Law Enforcement Exchange of DNA Identification Information – Section: Criminal Penalty
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 12592 – Index to Facilitate Law Enforcement Exchange of DNA Identification Information
11
United States Department of Justice. Interim Policy – Forensic Genetic Genealogical DNA Analysis and Searching
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 US Code 40742 – Grants to States to Implement DNA Arrestee Collection Processes
13
GovInfo. Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010
14
Congress.gov. HR 510 – Rapid DNA Act of 2017
15
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rapid DNA
16
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 40701 – The Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program