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Defendants should be able to inspect software code used in forensics.

Take California. Defendant Martell Chubbs currently faces murder charges for a 1977 cold case in which the only evidence against him is a DNA match by a proprietary computer program. Chubbs, who ran a small home-repair business at the time of his arrest, asked to inspect the software’s source code in order to challenge the accuracy of its results. Chubbs sought to determine whether the code properly implements established scientific procedures for DNA matching and if it operates the way its manufacturer claims. But the manufacturer argued that the defense attorney might steal or duplicate the code and cause the company to lose money. The court denied Chubbs’ request, leaving him free to examine the state’s expert witness but not the tool that the witness relied on. Courts in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and elsewhere have made similar rulings.

We need to trust new technologies to help us find and convict criminals but also to exonerate the innocent. Proprietary software interferes with that trust in a growing number of investigative and forensic devices, from DNA testing to facial recognition software to algorithms that tell police where to look for future crimes. Inspecting the software isn’t just good for defendants, though—disclosing code to defense experts helped the New Jersey Supreme Court confirm the scientific reliability of a breathalyzer.