SNPs have historically been used to match a forensic DNA sample to a suspect but has been made obsolete due to advancing STR-based DNA fingerprinting techniques. However, the development of next-generation-sequencing (NGS) technology may allow for more opportunities for the use of SNPs in phenotypic clues such as ethnicity, hair color, and eye color with a good probability of a match. This can additionally be applied to increase the accuracy of facial reconstructions by providing information that may otherwise be unknown, and this information can be used to help identify suspects even without a STR DNA profile match.
Some cons to using SNPs versus STRs is that SNPs yield less information than STRs, and therefore more SNPs are needed for analysis before a profile of a suspect is able to be created. Additionally, SNPs heavily rely on the presence of a database for comparative analysis of samples. However, in instances with degraded or small volume samples, SNP techniques are an excellent alternative to STR methods. SNPs (as opposed to STRs) have an abundance of potential markers, can be fully automated, and a possible reduction of required fragment length to less than 100bp.[26]