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...and then the genealogy website provided information to law enforcement by showing profiles of people with similar DNA. Perhaps that’s the real privacy issue
by chatmasta 9y ago
...and then the genealogy website provided information to law enforcement by showing profiles of people with similar DNA.
Perhaps that’s the real privacy issue... anyone can find a piece of hair on the sidewalk, send it to a genealogy website, and identify who it might belong to and/or any relatives.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe sites have more privacy controls than that.
- chatmasta 9y agoBut I have no say over my uncle’s privacy controls. If someone finds my hair, and my uncle allows himself to be publicly searchable by DNA, then the person who found the hair knows it belongs to someone associated with my uncle. They can then find him on Facebook and commence further analysis. It’s the same problem we saw with Cambridge Analytica. Incidental data shared by our friends can reveal information about ourselves when analyzed in bulk or supplemented with additional data.
- eksu 9y agoYou don't have a reasonable right to privacy of relations. That's all public record.
- mattnewton 9y agoThis in effect makes my DNA a matter of public record based on the decisions of my relatives (behind some hoops, but in practice it doesn’t seem hard). That seems like a breach of privacy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- paxys 9y agoWell it's technically your uncle's DNA. Limiting what he can or can't do with it because it also matches yours would then infringe on his rights.
- mattnewton 9y agoSure, in the same way my neighbors infringe on my rights to blast music at 4am.
- kenjackson 9y agoNot the same. Your uncles DNA only establishes he is your uncle. Unless your also saying that your uncle is not free to disclose any information that might be contained in his DNA. For example that he is a white male.
- eanzenberg 9y agoYou dont own your relative’s genetics. They can do whatever they want with them. There’s no breach of your privacy because nothing of yours was breached.
- mattnewton 9y agoBut my dna can now be matched to me - That is a breach of privacy today, or at least and end run around legislation that attempts to limit the spread of genetic information. We should think really carefully about this! My uncle’s right to check out who his long lost cousins could put my genetic information in the hands of a potential employer, insurer, or government. That could be really bad. This is similar to the Facebook scenario, where it’s not just your privacy you are trading away for whatever benefit, but those of people related or near you.
- kenjackson 9y agoAre you saying that your uncle also can't post his full medical and psychological history online either?
- paganel 9y agoNot the OP, but until not that long ago there was a social pressure thing of not "advertising" your relatives' history of psychological problems (mostly suicide or time spent inside a psychiatric ward) to outside members of your family, lest those outside members would think you had the potential of having the same issues, too. This is sort of similar to the "uncle" from your example not being free to post "his full medical and psychological history online", I mean, had he done that his family would have certainly retaliated by telling him to remove that information from public knowledge. Btw, I live in Eastern Europe so I'm talking about stuff I've experienced here, maybe in the States or in Western Europe this behavior changed a long time ago and not only recently.
- eksu 9y agoThere's a big difference between your own DNA being publicly hosted and identified, and some DNA that is pretty similar to yours but not the same as yours being posted and identified to someone that is not you. Why should you have a right to block the later from happening? It's not your own personal information.
- mattnewton 9y agoI think the difference is much smaller than you think. If someone finds male DNA and my uncle has used this service, and a public photo with my eyes and hair clearly visible in the background on his Facebook page, then suddenly it’s almost as if I registered my DNA in a public registry. It’s the metadata problem all over again, it just takes one or two more public data points to deanonymize it entirely.
- return1 9y agosince DNA is by nature unalterable, that implies that there is no right to privacy of DNA.
- conanbatt 9y agoYou uncle should have a right to rat you out if he pleases. A mother can turn on his murderous child to the police if she wishes so. I think the debatible point is consent: i dont think anyone ever consented to their dna being able to be used to incriminate them or anyone else without their express consent.
- themodelplumber 9y agoI can see it now: "Hi. We're not actually related, but I believe you may be 2nd or 3rd cousins to someone who left a brand new, pink hairbrush at my B&B."
- tzakrajs 9y ago"So can you come pick this hairbrush up and give it to your cousin?"
- nashashmi 9y agoGattaca!
- FPGAhacker 9y agoI had the same thought.
- FPGAhacker 9y agoI guess people didn't like that movie. I thought it was great, and a relevant reference.
- orionblastar 9y agoIt needs to be rebooted for modern times.
- 21 9y agoSo after search by phone number or email on Facebook, we will also have search by DNA. For when you want to get in touch with that mysterious stranger on the subway...
- patrickaljord 9y agoYou'd first need to pull a hair from that stranger on the subway though.
- sjg007 9y agoYou would just need to swab anything they touched.. it might be sufficient.
- mannykannot 9y agoGood point - you would have a better chance with someone who works for a food vendor...
- lamarpye 9y agoDone
- return1 9y agoand sequence it
- coldtea 9y ago>anyone can find a piece of hair on the sidewalk, send it to a genealogy website, and identify who it might belong to and/or any relatives. Searching for relatives in such sites, CAN be a privacy issue, but I don't see how your particular example works exactly. What motivation exactly would have anyone that found a piece of hair, on the sidewalk or elsewhere, to know people with DNA from/similar to that hair's?
- braythwayt 9y agoConsider this creepy altrnative: You have a drink at a bar. Stranger swabs it, or steals the glass, collects DNA, sends it in, now triangulates who you are from your relatives. I don't know if it's that easy, but something like this may become possible.
- coldtea 9y ago>Consider this creepy altrnative: You have a drink at a bar. Stranger swabs it, or steals the glass, collects DNA, sends it in, now triangulates who you are from your relatives. Sure, but following you would be much easier. Why go through all the trouble (AND live an online trace).
- gnode 9y ago> an online trace Maybe in the future leaked DNA sequence databases will be available, downloadable, and searchable by criminals without a third party. If so, this would actually be less likely to create evidence than following them.
- hrasyid 9y agoIf they have your paternal relatives and your maternal relatives, that pretty much just leaves you and your siblings, right? *Unless there are other marriages between your mom's and dad's families
- nkrisc 9y agoThey've probably got your finger prints too as a bonus.
- ehsankia 9y agoI agree. My understand was that both parties have to agree for the website to connect them. I'm not sure what specific site this is, but I wouldn't trust a site that just connects me to other people without my consent.
- hrasyid 9y agoYour consent, or even you being on the website, isn't needed. If enough of your relatives consented, the stalker can have at least a list of your relatives, and try to guess you from there (as the police did in this case)
- ehsankia 9y agoThat's assuming again that my relative accept to share. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the direct result. In this case, the relative of the killer never agreed to share the data with the police.
- hrasyid 9y ago> the relative of the killer never agreed to share the data with the police Not with the police, but they let people who find a related DNA to find them (this is a feature of these websites). Once the police have your DNA, then can find your relatives. You can't control whether your relatives are opted in to this feature or not.
- chrischen 9y ago23andme requires quite a bit of saliva. They could definitely up the requirements to decrease the chance of fraud.
- unethical_ban 9y agoSo the issue is 23andMe or similar accepting DNA samples without verifying identify beforehand. As in, they should submit some kind of ID or affidavit that they are the provider of the sample before delivering it.