The one thing that always bothered me in Gattaca: discrimination was supposedly illegal, but the police had the same scanners the corporation did to see if people were 'valid' or not. Seems like that would be inadmissible evidence!
Discrimination based on race is illegal, but police still care about race in both official and unofficial ways.
And for example, witness testimony of "I saw a white man leave the scene of the crime" would be completely admissible testimony in a trial.
So this doesn't seem like a mistake of worldbuilding to me. The way it's used in the story, it probably says some unflattering things about the police force and the society, but that seems entirely intentional.
Most white people won't have experienced that, because we're not ever in a situation where we can personally see a black person be pulled over by the police.
Pretty sure ‘valid’ was about registration; a valid entry in the database not a aspersion on the DNA. In the movie they state they’re looking for someone who is smart enough to have avoid registering all of these years. To avoid registration Vincent would have had to take even worse jobs than otherwise would have been afforded to him, similar to undocumented immigrants in the US today.
