China Is Using DNA from Uighurs to Predict Physical Features

An investigation reveals that the government is developing technology to try to reconstruct a person’s appearance based on a genetic sample, raising concerns for the rights of Muslim minority groups in the country.

Written byCatherine Offord

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The Chinese government is developing technology to predict people’s physical appearance based on DNA collected from Uighurs in Xinjiang province, according to an investigation published today (December 3) by The New York Times. News of the research, which parallels work on similar technology in the US, has sparked concerns that the Uighurs’ DNA samples are being obtained without proper consent, and may be used to persecute this and other predominantly Muslim minority groups.

“What the Chinese government is doing should be a warning to everybody who kind of goes along happily thinking, ‘How could anyone be worried about these technologies?’” Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells the Times.

At least 1 million Uighurs and members of other minority groups are being held in detention centers in Xinjiang, in northwest China. The government has collected blood samples from ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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