Beyond Chain of Custody: A Biological Provenance Record for Activity-Level Interpretation of Trace DNA
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Abstract
A DNA profile may be statistically compelling yet historically ambiguous. Strong contributor attribution does not establish when, how, or during which activity biological material reached an exhibit. Those questions depend on information that may lie outside the profile itself, including prior legitimate use, co-users, cleaning, environmental exposure, subsequent handling, collection sequence, packaging, laboratory processing, sampling location, and recovery method. This Short Communication proposes the Biological Provenance Record (BPR), a concise companion to chain of custody designed to preserve the minimum case information relevant to transfer, persistence, prevalence/background DNA, recovery, contamination, and activity-level proposition formulation. The framework follows the exhibit from pre-event history through the alleged event, post-event handling, collection, packaging and transport, laboratory processing, and interpretation. Material information is recorded according to evidential status—documented, reported, disputed, unknown, or not applicable—so that uncertainty is preserved rather than converted into assumed fact. The BPR is not an evaluative algorithm, does not identify the true transfer route, and does not itself justify a numerical activity-level likelihood ratio. Its purpose is to preserve the biological history needed to formulate realistic competing propositions, assess the relevance of TPPR data, recognize dependence and post-event transfer opportunities, and identify when quantification is not defensible. Prospective evaluation is required to determine usability, inter-user consistency, workflow burden, and whether BPR-assisted documentation improves the completeness and transparency of activity-level reasoning.
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