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FamilyTreeDNA: It’s Our ‘Moral Responsibility’ to Give FBI Access to Your DNA
- 0_gravitas 8y agoGuess I'm not using that then
- purple-again 8y agoSadly it’s not that simple. You don’t have to use it, but unless you can stop your family as well they will have most of what they need from you that way.
- return0 8y agoI wonder what is the minimum % of people that need to have their DNA sequenced in order for any human to be able to be identified. The police cases mentioned in the past hint that we are already.
- 420codebro 8y agoI’ve read 10-20%. Of those are positive IDs it becomes real easy go find cold case suspects.
- gwern 8y agohttps://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/145599v3 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/145599v3 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/01/29/531384.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/01/29/531...
- return0 8y agothanks. it seems that already (considering only GEDMatch's 850000 samples): > Its also striking that were already in an era in which familial searches against publicly accessible SNP databases are feasible for a lot of cases, probably the majority of cases where the suspect has substantial recent ancestry in the US
- dilippkumar 8y agoThis is my favorite argument against sharing DNA information (from Defcon 25): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY
- davidkuhta 8y agoAwesome video, thanks for sharing
- est31 8y agoOh, I've seen it but forgot about the name. Thanks for putting it here!
- i_am_proteus 8y ago> As specified in FamilyTreeDNA's Terms of Service, law enforcement can only receive information not already accessible to the standard user by providing FamilyTreeDNA with valid legal process such as a subpoena or a search warrant. > Additionally, FamilyTreeDNA customers have the option to opt out of law enforcement matching entirely. If customers do opt out, they can still see their family matches but are excluded from being seen by law enforcement. This does not make sense to me. I know that DNA can be taken physically from an individual with a warrant, so ostensibly that would hold with FamilyTree as well. So: if one opts out, what is one opting out of? FamilyTree can't be suggesting that they'll withhold evidence because a customer opted out, can they?
- kharms 8y agoYou traditionally can't get a warrant to get the DNA of the cousin of a suspect in a crime. With a centralized DNA registry you can get partial matches. So perhaps those are opt-out?
- ikeyany 8y agoSounds like they're opting out of the warrantless variety of police searches. I'd imagine you can't opt out of a subpoena.
- deogeo 8y agoThe opt out could be and opt in to have them delete your data after they give you the results. No-one is forcing them to keep it.
- johndubchak 8y agoAre you suggesting they’d voluntarily delete your data? Opt out, to me, just means that they’ll share your data if issued a subpoena. However, I don’t know if you could get a subpoena to search the entire DNA database of a company.
- deogeo 8y ago
- Madmallard 8y agoIf only law enforcement agencies were strictly benevolent...
- rplst8 8y agoSome things require an eloquent rebuttal to be taken seriously. To others, just saying "Fsck that" should be enough.
- dannykwells 8y agoI personally feel that the next great privacy scandal is going to come from one of these DNA companies being hacked, or abused by law enforcement, etc. And we all will have seen it coming. The issue, of course, is that unlike Facebook you can't just delete your DNA.
- flycaliguy 8y agoNot only that, but I can't stop anyone I'm related to from creating a shadow profile of me.
- dylan604 8y agoSo, just like Facebook after all?
- elcomet 8y agoI don't think there is a huge difference with Facebook. You cannot delete your face (well, you can, but at a huge cost, with facial surgery). So when your photos are leaked, you can't do much about it, deleting your Facebook account won't help here.
- Real_S 8y agoThis will be a huge. As bad as I will feel for the victims, I hope that it causes us to take genetic information security seriously.
- apo 8y ago> “If FamilyTreeDNA can help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families, then we feel the company has a moral responsibility to do so.” The FBI (and a variety of other organizations) can and will use the information for any and all purposes imaginable, and a number that are unimaginable. As a family member of someone who sends in a FamilyTreeDNA kit, you're powerless to opt out. An implicit, traceable link to your own DNA suddenly enters the system against your will, and you have no recourse. Suddenly you become part of this this experiment in mass surveillance. The people of rich democracies are way too trusting of their governments and don't read enough history. Saying that this service will be used to " help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families" is naive at best and something monstrous at worst. Some uses are easy to predict. Genocide, for example. Others, no so much. - Imagine a Bird-type gig economy in which thousands of cash-strapped people are hired (possibly by FamilyTreeDNA under contract from the FBI) to swab public places and objects for DNA, while the company compiles the results into a massive internet of DNA things. Now imagine that database being linked to a face-recognition system using public cameras. - Imagine being turned down for a job because someone happened to get a peek at your FamilyTReeDNA profile and noticed a marker for mental illness. - Imagine being sent to prison because some jackass politician starts believing in criminal DNA markers and you fit the bill. I'll give credit to Bennett Greenspan for this. He knows how to wrap a massive invasion of privacy in the sweet-smelling blanket of saving us all from the criminal boogeyman.
- time0ut 8y agoGattaca was prescient. It was a glimpse of what our future will look like if things continue this way unchecked. While those of us paying attention will find it terrifying, the majority won't notice or be bothered by it I fear.
- dorchadas 8y agoThe vast majority have been convinced that the "I've got nothing to hide" defense protects them. It works with surveillance, and it'll work with this too. They've already given up liberty to purchase some temporary security; Franklin would be upset.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mnm1 8y agoThis is the reason not to ever use any of these scummy companies. What next? Should I sign over the rights to my DNA to them too so they can charge me for cell division and reproduction? Monsanto already does this. Fuck these people and their moralistic bullshit. It is our moral responsibility to not use such services if we at all care about privacy, security, and our own well being. Even DNA isn't 100% accurate. Do they think it's our responsibility to go to prison when our DNA is mistakenly matched to a crime scene too? Seriously, fuck these companies.
- chillacy 8y ago> Fuck these people and their moralistic bullshit. It is our moral responsibility to... I admit I chuckled, as someone who finds moral arguments pretty shallow because they tend to depend on what each person thinks is the right thing.
- ve55 8y agoI will be waiting until I can analyze my DNA myself, without handing it over to a company that is going to do whatever it wants to with it. We are not yet able to fully appreciate how valuable DNA is, and yet everyone seems delighted to pay companies to take it from them. Perhaps they will be less delighted when they are convicted of a crime based off of a false positive, have their DNA shared with Facebook to Improve Their User Experience ™, or have their DNA made public after yet another security breach where it is left on an unsecured server. Remember that your DNA is very valuable, literally. Those who have noticed recent progress in genomics should realize how valuable it would be to a competent advertising company, allowing them to profile and predict users with significantly higher personal accuracy, even if all they are doing is performing basic GWASs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome-wide_association_study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome-wide_association_study).
- est31 8y agoPeople can get your DNA without your consent already, as your DNA gets onto every object you touch. The most valuable part about sending stuff to a DNA company is your consent, especially considering that sequencing costs have a super-moore's law like cost reduction. Once they have your consent they can share it, sell it, rent it, to recruiters for ad targeting, insurances, etc etc. Without consent they'd get onto dubious legal territory, if e.g. Amazon took gene samples from refunds. But maybe it'll just become part of their TOS, you not being able to opt out unless you don't want to refund your stuff to Amazon. Not sure if the ability to sequence DNA yourself is really beneficial to privacy, after all that allows people to sequence the DNA of many people around them.
- Tsubasachan 8y agoThis isn't really necessary. Make a DNA database of crimnals. That guy who killed a child and left his sperm behind? He is bound to slip up and get arrested for something sooner or later. No need for the FBI to start fishing for everyone's DNA.
- vignesh_m 8y agoNot really a good rebuttal. The only reason for not getting our DNA is depending on criminals having repeat offenses?
- DanBC 8y agoEngland shows that "criminal" DNA databases expand as much as they can. Now if you're arrested, not necessarily convicted, you'll have your DNA taken and kept on file for a few years. Note that someone had to take England to the EU court of human rights to get this changed so that people found not guilty, or people not charged, won't have their DNA kept indefinitely. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protection-of-freedoms-act-2012-dna-and-fingerprint-provisions/protection-of-freedoms-act-2012-how-dna-and-fingerprint-evidence-is-protected-in-law https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protection-of-fre...
- mamon 8y agoSuppose that's the one of the real reasons of Brexit :)
- wtdata 8y agoThis is a bad idea, when are you considered a criminal and when is the FBI/police allowed to take your DNA for testing? When they arrest you? When you are convicted? Convicted in the 1st instance? Upper court?
- treis 8y ago>That guy who killed a child and left his sperm behind? He is bound to slip up and get arrested for something sooner or later. Or we can arrest the guy before he commits another crime.
- shawnz 8y agoCompare with 23andme: > 23andMe chooses to use all practical legal and administrative resources to resist requests from law enforcement, and we do not share customer data with any public databases, or with entities that may increase the risk of law enforcement access. https://www.23andme.com/law-enforcement-guide/ https://www.23andme.com/law-enforcement-guide/ And AncestryDNA: > Contents of communications and any data relating to the DNA of an Ancestry user will be released only pursuant to a valid search warrant from a government agency with proper jurisdiction. https://www.ancestry.ca/cs/legal/lawenforcement https://www.ancestry.ca/cs/legal/lawenforcement
- tempodox 8y agoUntil they get bought out or simply change their minds, that is.
- unreal37 8y agoThe purpose of Ancestry (and FamilyTreeDNA) is ancestry research. You don't go to Ancestry to get your DNA tested for diseases. You go there for ancestry research. The entire purpose is sharing.
- shawnz 8y agoYes, one purpose of the service is sharing with people who have similar DNA to you (not just police officers conducting dragnet searches). And it's not the "entire purpose" either, much of the ancestry data is available for you to view even if you don't use the sharing features.
- unreal37 8y agoSure, you can find the records others have shared and not share your own. But the purpose of these sites is finding family members. Let's stop being shocked that this means the DNA info voluntarily submitted is public.
- new_guy 8y ago> Several weeks later, FamilyTreeDNA changed their rules to allow customers to block the FBI from accessing their information. All that's gonna do is flag you for priority analysis!
- unreal37 8y agoThe purpose of FamilyTreeDNA is to compare your DNA with all of the people already in their database to find distant relatives. There should be NO surprise that going to FamilyTreeDNA (or Ancestry.com) results in your records being public to other members.
- pfdietz 8y agoI wonder how many men are worried that this sort of matching is going to turn up children they didn't know they had fathered. That situation is a lot more common than cold case serial killers.
- hedora 8y agoThose sort of errors cause all sorts of more serious trouble in another way: Men finding out they didn’t father children they thought they did. I worked at a genetics lab, and day one training was that this happened all the time, and that we absolutely must not let people in medical studies know we’d found a mismatch. (In fact, we actively avoided noticing such things.)
- pfdietz 8y agoYes, but in this case what would happen would be mothers (or the children) actively searching for the dads, using those forensic genealogy techniques. The key of course is that the dad's DNA is not required to perform the search.
- oh_sigh 8y agoI'll sign up for this. I'd gladly see a cousin, father, or brother go to jail if they are a murderer, or rapist, or whatever.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoI don't think that's the concern of anyone here. What about when it's incarcerating the family of anyone who ever posted on HN?
- oh_sigh 8y agoI put the odds of that happening at pretty much 0. Sometimes it is fun to think about the odds of me getting hit by a meteorite if I leave my underground bunker, but I'm not going to let that dictate my daily life.
- amanaplanacanal 8y agoPersonally, I'm counting on my tinfoil hat to protect me.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y agoSame. Law enforcement already has plenty of tools to implement totalitarianism, should that be the goal of the political class. If we are in the dark universe where this eventually comes to pass, a DNA database is not going to make much of a difference in one way or another. On the other hand, in the world where we have good leaders, this tool offers a material delta in the finding and convicting of dangerous criminals.
- rabidrat 8y ago> in the world where we have good leaders This seems to be the faulty axiom in your logic.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
- nahalay 8y ago'Moral responsibility' is a very interesting choice of words given the history of this institution. But, feels like history isn't used for forecasting doom if it causes short-term inconvenience.
- arminiusreturns 8y agoAs a person who worked in a genetics lab for a while, those who are concerned about privacy should do the following: find a smaller lab and tell them from the get go you want all the data, and for them to delete it after sequencing, then find a third party to do the data analysis. With sequencing at less than 1k these days, you should be able to do it for sub 3k with the analysis while protecting your privacy.