DNA Identification in Mass Fatality Incidents
Infrastructure
Mass fatality incident responses are high-profile events that are scrutinized by the public, elected officials, and the press. In addition, the response can have an aggressive timetable for completing victim identifications, and DNA is often the primary means of identification. The systems that support the DNA identification effort should be considered “mission critical.” System downtime should be minimized, and robust backup and restore procedures should be among the first processes implemented.
Volunteers or members of external organizations may participate in the laboratory’s disaster response, which means that the IT manager may need to provide computers and other temporary services (e.g., printing and e-mail) to those entities. The IT manager most likely will need a security policy that restricts access to certain aspects of the data by unauthorized volunteers.
The demands placed on the IT infrastructure will last for the duration of the response. Because the DNA analysis process generates large amounts of data, the laboratory will need sufficient storage capacity to absorb the additional data produced during the disaster response. Dedicated IT staff (in-house or outsourced) may need to be provided as well.
