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Wouldn't you have to get a signed waiver from everyone? Also, sequencing still isn't actually cheap. The price is dropping quickly and its cost is reasonable f
by btmorex 16y ago
Wouldn't you have to get a signed waiver from everyone?
Also, sequencing still isn't actually cheap. The price is dropping quickly and its cost is reasonable for research, but it's not reasonable for "let's sequence everything" (yet)
- starkfist 16y agoYes, when I was involved with this... privacy was a major issue. But I think everyone was over thinking it. In this day and age when people twitter their turds, it seems like it would be less of an issue. The sequencing is cheap enough.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoHow about if the data collectors just agree to ignore any personally identifiable information? Probably more interested in the data aggregate anyway.
- starkfist 16y agoWhen I was involved with some people who wanted to do this, they had a security expert on the "board" who would bring up that study where given 2 (or 3?) pieces of information about a person, you can ID them. I guess just knowing the hospital and the sample and the date, you could ID the person. Anyway, these were the kinds of discussions I had for a year and then decided to leave the world of semi-academic meta-bio research because there were too many "committees" and "boardS" and "experts" and nothing ever got done.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoOh right, Information Theory. There was a cool article on HN about that a while back, showing you only need something like 3 bits (zip code, birth date, and something else iirc) to identify anyone in the world.