With 10M testers with atDNA and public access via GEDMATCH, dozens of law enforcement agencies in the US are using this source with amazing results for cold cases and unidentified remains.
YDNA has much more long term promise as the tree of mankind is adding dozens of branches daily now in the genetic genealogy databases. With around 1,000,000 public YSTR testers and over 50,000 of NGS testers, administrators of FTDNA haplogroup projects can give you the probabilties of surname for 10 to 30 % of testers depending on how prolific each genetic cluster is - just on YSNP testing.
Many surname clusters (those related since surnames were first used around 1000 AD) are around 30 % of my testers in my haplogroup project R-L226 (which has around 1,100 testers and is 90 % Irish). We are now assigning YSTR/YSNP mutations to ancestors on our pedigree charts on a regular basis these days. For example, if you test positive for the YSNP FGC5639, there is a 90 % chance that your surname is Casey and they you descend from two or three Casey men that arrived in South Carolina in the 1750s. At least 75 % of the Caseys that live in the southern states belong to this surname cluster. There are two known NPE lines (adoption of Casey males by non-Casey males - Hanvey & Meredith.
The ability to connect testers together is all about sample sizes of the testers. This database is not limited for the US and has extensive western European content as well. The databases, adhoc tools, and skill levels of the administrators is very high (there is an excellent mix of academic, genetic, math (probably the most important) and technical skills.
The problem with most law enforcement and academic databases are the size and scope are very limited when compared to genetic genealogy databases. The bulk of the YDNA database is under terms and conditions of the Family Tree DNA web site rules. But most of this database is also in the public domain as well which is not subject to FTDNA web site terms & conditions usage.
There is no doubt that genalogic genomics is a procedure of high potential interest in criminal investigations, especially useful in the resolution of some recent cold cases. It is also true that such forensic application lacks regulation in most countries and currently the confidentiality of genetic data of donors can not be guaranteed in public databases.
(See the recent paper of Y. Erlich et al., Science 10.1126/science.aau4832 (2018).
The issue with law enforcement and academic databases is that their sample size will never be large enough to address forensic needs of law enforcement. So the academic approaches and the more regulated approaches have failed to protect their citizens. On the other hand, some of the genetic genealogy vendors' approaches are strictly to protect themselves from privacy lawsuits vs. even a hint informing consumers of the loss of privacy for their identity.
The vast majority of testers are genealogists who understand these trade-offs. The whole point of the creation of this industry is connect relatives together. The leadership of the genetic genealogy community do openly discuss these trade-offs but the vendors avoid the loss of identity privacy for their own financial gain and due to increase in legal exposure if discussed.
It is really not a wise use of academic/public funds to duplicate that will be smaller databases that are going to be far inferior to these public databases. Law enforcement in the US is now solving several cases per month with these databases. And who are these law enforcement agencies hiring as consultants and getting trained - genetic genealogists - not academic sources which are way behind in the learning curve. Who is developing prediction tools, triangulation tools and charting tools - genetic genealogists. These tools are based on solid mathematical models where we could use the help of the academic world - but there is little input from the academic community.
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