Forget about security cameras or exploding paint packs in money bags. A U.K. company thinks it has developed a better, more discreet high-tech crime-fighting device using a DNA spray.
It's called SelectaDNA spray, and it's loaded into a canister that's mounted above a doorway.
When an intruder trips an alarm system, or when a panic button is pressed by a store employee, the canister uses a motion detector to spray a fine mist over the intruder as he steps through the doorway.
The harmless and odourless spray clings to clothing fibres and sits in creases of the skin and marks the criminal with a spray that is only visible under ultraviolet light.
James Brown, the co-owner of the company that makes the spray, Selectamark Security Systems, explains that if police nab the criminal, they can scan him with an ultraviolet light.
"All areas on his body that are marked with the spray will glow to show that he has the solution on him," Brown explained to CTV's Canada AM earlier this week.
"At that point, police can take a swab, send it to us to be forensically analyzed and link him to the crime scene."
Each spray canister contains a unique synthetic DNA signature, so police can connect the criminal to a particular crime scene.
Brown says that even if the criminal figures out he's been covered in the spray, the solution isn't easy to remove.
"It depends on a number of factors, like skin type and how many washes, but generally speaking, it can last up to two weeks," Brown said. "So police have a very long period of time to catch the criminal."
What's more, the fine-mist spray can accumulate on the inside of nostrils and ears and under the fingernails, places usually missed in a scrub-down. And since the spray is invisible, if a criminal doesn't have a UV light, he won't know where it's lurking.
Businesses using the SelectaDNA system can post signs outside their buildings that read "You Steal, You're Marked." The hope is that when criminals see the term "DNA," they'll know that the technology can link them to a crime and they'll choose to walk away.
Police tested the spray as part of a trial with SelectaDNA in west London's Queensway neighborhood, a popular tourist destination with a high crime rate and a large number of empty tourist apartments. More than 200 properties occupied by elderly residents and previous victims of crime were offered SelectaDNA kits by police.
In the four-month experiment, burglaries fell by 65 per cent.
Since then, a number of other communities in the U.K., the Netherlands and New Zealand have also used the system and found it resulted in a drop in break-ins. Even the Dutch rail company ProRail BV has used the spray to thwart scrap metal thieves, marking trackside metals with the unique DNA grease.
Brown explains that the real purpose of the device isn't to help forensics teams solve robberies; it's to prevent the crimes from happening at all.
"Primarily it is used as a deterrent to theft and robbery. We don't want these crimes to happen in the first place," he said.
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SelectaDNA Nederlandby joost804234341,233 views
LOL, So that means every time I walk through my front door or back door I get sprayed with this DNA spray so I wonder what this could do to my own DNA over a period of years, I wouldn't want to turn into The Fly or some other hideous creature.
This would have to be hooked up to an alarm system so that it only sprays when activated but then it might spray the home owner when he comes home, the police & the detectives so let's lock'em all up just to be safe. LOL
GlobalAwareness2525 4 months ago
I spray DNA all over my girlfriend,
And she still steals money out of my wallet!
rklcardinal 1 year ago
they're gonna chip us in the long run anyway so who gives a shit?
RegentDevil2 1 year ago