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You are leaving a DNA trail in your wake, and it's only private or personal insofar as no one looked at it. But it seems like it's something that we really have

You are leaving a DNA trail in your wake, and it's only private or personal insofar as no one looked at it. But it seems like it's something that we really have no hopes of keeping private over any reasonable timeline into the future.

hkai 7y ago
Interesting, did anyone ever try to massively analyze DNA by collecting, I don't know, hairs or used cutlery or other waste that contains DNA?
- mcculley 7y ago
  This is an inevitable future. Adtech and martech companies already pay for customer data. Why would they not set up ways to gather this data?
  - mr_overalls 7y ago
    The premise of the film Gattaca (1997) is slowly coming true. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Shoot! Yes! My partner showed me a story about this recently where a person reconstructed potential faces from DNA collected from discarded cigarette butts, hair, and other items. They used the faces in an art display. I’ll see if I can find it but I’m not confident— Edit: found it easier than I thought: https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-sculptures/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-scul... This is a privacy matter, I think. It seems haphazard to allow this kind of thing wantonly...
  - DanBC 7y ago
    This? https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-sculptures/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-...
mtgx 7y ago
Aren't we moving the goalposts as technology advances? For instance, your DNA used to be private in the past simply because no one could do anything with it even if they would get it. So you benefited from this privacy aspect by default. In the next 20 years your DNA will probably be in multiple databases somewhere even if you never offered it to companies. Similarly, in the past you may have benefited from the privacy of your own home. You could say or do anything you wanted and that would be kept private (for the most part). Now, with all the "always-on" smartphones and smart home devices and surveillance cameras, everything you do or say in your home will be on someone else's server, which can be data mined, sold to third-parties, requested by various law enforcement agencies, and stolen by cybercriminals. It seems to me that from your point of view and with enough technology advances we'll have 0% privacy in the future. Everything around us will listen to us and watch us, and then others, with who you may have never interacted, will also get to see and analyze all of that data. So the technology could enable all of this -- but the question is should we let it? Privacy is a human right for a very good reason -- abuses against someone's private life can lead to all sorts of nefarious things against that person, whether it's something as "benign" as increasing your insurance rates to not offering your free/cheap healthcare because you "live too dangerously" or malicious actors and government agents using it to destroy your life for profit or personal vendettas.
- endorphone 7y ago
  In the case of smart devices in your home we do still have a choice -- just don't buy them or use them, or ensure that the ones you do use have strong protections, etc. However with DNA it is like you are screaming it in countless public places daily and it was only ignorance that protected its privacy. That time is rapidly coming to a close. The cost and time of processing it, once prohibited, has fallen through the floor and soon enough just doing mass dragnets is going to be trivial. It seems likely that generating facial profiles from DNA is not too far off either. Couple that with a facial recognition system and you have a deep identity. We should fight it as possible, but we'll see how far that gets us.
- rotrux 7y ago
  Unless research in this area is policed, outlawing the practice will drive it underground or to another country with less qualms. One problem with trying to ban incorporeal things like genetic sequencing algorithms is that you can't control supply like you can with guns or really any physical good that has a high capital expenditure requirement. You say "should we let it" like that wouldn't mean getting way more draconian about policing information. How do you prevent people from sharing their own DNA? How do you keep people from reading and remembering it?
stankypickle 7y ago
If people have that attitude then it will most certainly be the case.
drdaeman 7y ago
It's similar to facial recognition. It's not about the ability to look at something, face image or DNA. It's about ability to remember that information and use it. Some argue that they want ownership of information that concern themselves, and right to deny others from handling that without explicit consent. Others argue that collection is alright but sharing (with or without exceptions) isn't. Others disagree completely and say that information belongs to whoever holds it, as it's immoral to deprive person of rights to have memories. It's also arguable that privacy laws may apply differently between persons and companies. Or between natural and artificial memory banks. Or that different rules should apply based on volume of data stored, like number of persons involved. I've read many different opinions on this matter. Lean towards some, but haven't firmly decided on any. I don't think this will be fully resolved until someone would invent eidetic memory drugs or implants or something like that, and we'll have to erase the current boundary between humans and machines.

hkai 7y ago

Interesting, did anyone ever try to massively analyze DNA by collecting, I don't know, hairs or used cutlery or other waste that contains DNA?

mcculley 7y ago
This is an inevitable future. Adtech and martech companies already pay for customer data. Why would they not set up ways to gather this data?
- mr_overalls 7y ago
  The premise of the film Gattaca (1997) is slowly coming true. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/
52-6F-62 7y ago
Shoot! Yes! My partner showed me a story about this recently where a person reconstructed potential faces from DNA collected from discarded cigarette butts, hair, and other items. They used the faces in an art display. I’ll see if I can find it but I’m not confident— Edit: found it easier than I thought: https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-sculptures/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-scul... This is a privacy matter, I think. It seems haphazard to allow this kind of thing wantonly...
- DanBC 7y ago
  This? https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-sculptures/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/04/tech/innovation/dna-face-...

mtgx 7y ago

Aren't we moving the goalposts as technology advances? For instance, your DNA used to be private in the past simply because no one could do anything with it even if they would get it. So you benefited from this privacy aspect by default. In the next 20 years your DNA will probably be in multiple databases somewhere even if you never offered it to companies. Similarly, in the past you may have benefited from the privacy of your own home. You could say or do anything you wanted and that would be kept private (for the most part). Now, with all the "always-on" smartphones and smart home devices and surveillance cameras, everything you do or say in your home will be on someone else's server, which can be data mined, sold to third-parties, requested by various law enforcement agencies, and stolen by cybercriminals. It seems to me that from your point of view and with enough technology advances we'll have 0% privacy in the future. Everything around us will listen to us and watch us, and then others, with who you may have never interacted, will also get to see and analyze all of that data. So the technology could enable all of this -- but the question is should we let it? Privacy is a human right for a very good reason -- abuses against someone's private life can lead to all sorts of nefarious things against that person, whether it's something as "benign" as increasing your insurance rates to not offering your free/cheap healthcare because you "live too dangerously" or malicious actors and government agents using it to destroy your life for profit or personal vendettas.

endorphone 7y ago
In the case of smart devices in your home we do still have a choice -- just don't buy them or use them, or ensure that the ones you do use have strong protections, etc. However with DNA it is like you are screaming it in countless public places daily and it was only ignorance that protected its privacy. That time is rapidly coming to a close. The cost and time of processing it, once prohibited, has fallen through the floor and soon enough just doing mass dragnets is going to be trivial. It seems likely that generating facial profiles from DNA is not too far off either. Couple that with a facial recognition system and you have a deep identity. We should fight it as possible, but we'll see how far that gets us.
rotrux 7y ago
Unless research in this area is policed, outlawing the practice will drive it underground or to another country with less qualms. One problem with trying to ban incorporeal things like genetic sequencing algorithms is that you can't control supply like you can with guns or really any physical good that has a high capital expenditure requirement. You say "should we let it" like that wouldn't mean getting way more draconian about policing information. How do you prevent people from sharing their own DNA? How do you keep people from reading and remembering it?

stankypickle 7y ago

If people have that attitude then it will most certainly be the case.

drdaeman 7y ago

It's similar to facial recognition. It's not about the ability to look at something, face image or DNA. It's about ability to remember that information and use it. Some argue that they want ownership of information that concern themselves, and right to deny others from handling that without explicit consent. Others argue that collection is alright but sharing (with or without exceptions) isn't. Others disagree completely and say that information belongs to whoever holds it, as it's immoral to deprive person of rights to have memories. It's also arguable that privacy laws may apply differently between persons and companies. Or between natural and artificial memory banks. Or that different rules should apply based on volume of data stored, like number of persons involved. I've read many different opinions on this matter. Lean towards some, but haven't firmly decided on any. I don't think this will be fully resolved until someone would invent eidetic memory drugs or implants or something like that, and we'll have to erase the current boundary between humans and machines.