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I did it 6/7 years ago because the novelty, and enthusiastically recommended it to family and friends. Now I regret doing it considering how Google and Facebook
by zyang 7y ago
I did it 6/7 years ago because the novelty, and enthusiastically recommended it to family and friends. Now I regret doing it considering how Google and Facebook has abused consumer data. I definitely would not submit my kids to the same fate.
- evv555 7y ago>I definitely would not submit my kids to the same fate. You already have since your DNA is out there in a database.
- johntiger1 7y agoThat's not exactly how DNA works. Their kids should be mostly fine (99.99% similar is still night and day)
- scarmig 7y agoIf the government encounters one of their kid's DNA, that's enough to identify them as a son/daughter of the person with that DNA profile. If a medical insurance company purchases their DNA, analyzes it, and anticipates that a child of theirs is likely to have medical costs 5x the average, those costs will be passed on to those kids, absent legislation to the contrary. This applies to everyone you're related to, as well.
- munk-a 7y ago> If the government encounters one of their kid's DNA, that's enough to identify them as a son/daughter of the person with that DNA profile. I don't believe that's ever been tested in court (so there isn't precedence) and the ways in which DNA are complex enough - and the mutation rate is high enough - that it might be like fingerprints... if you're the only person with DNA that might be like the kind found and you've got some serious suspicion around you for other reasons... then they might be able to use it as supporting evidence or to compel you to submit to DNA testing to confirm the match (which apparently does have precedence in the US... wow America)
- JshWright 7y agoJoseph DeAngelo was caught because one of his relatives did a 23andMe style test.
- cookiecaper 7y agoYeah, this isn't science fiction or conspiracy theory anymore. Several high-profile cold cases have gone hot as police have been trawling the datasets submitted to 23AndMe et al and investigating the family trees of persons whose DNA is similar-ish to the samples in unsolved cases. [0] The results are mainly bupkis anyway, and you're paying for the privilege of having police agencies across the country (world?) give extra scrutiny to you and all of your relations. No thanks. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/27/golden-state-killer-dna-website-gedmatch-was-used-to-identify-joseph-deangelo-as-suspect-police-say/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/27...
- glennpratt 7y agoIt's all tradeoffs, I want some privacy, but I also like crimes being solved. In fact, I'd see that as a benefit even if I'm related to criminals. Of course this assumes it is used correctly and fairly, which is the hard part.
- slimed 7y agoStunning naivete on display here
- ewoodrich 7y agoHow so? They point out the difficulty balancing personal privacy and tools to identify criminals who have evaded justice. Just because you don't agree with the relative importance placed on either side doesn't make them dumb or naive.
- 7y ago
- stjohnswarts 7y agoYeah I keep waiting to hear about insurance companies finally paying off politicians enough to get HIPPA revoked.
- ci5er 7y agoWell, yeah, in the sense that a chimp and a human are about 98.5% similar. But from that point of view, humans are 99.9999% similar. The other point-of-view is that a male and a female of a species will end up with approximately 50/50 similarity to either parent. These are different measures coming from different point-of-views. If I were Gengis Khan (and who is to say that I was not!), then I could have impregnated enough women over my days on the steppes, to have, 1000 years late, up to countable percentages of my far-far-far descendents actually detected in tests as being my actual descendents. Please don't conflate "this dna comparative measure" with "that dna comparative measure". It's all (theoretically) straight forward, and, yes, compounded by empiricism, but these are different measures, regardless.
- cortesoft 7y agoIf they get a sample from the kid, they will be able to say with certainty that the commenter is the parent. They wouldn't be able to tell the difference between kids of the same gender, but if you only have one kid or a boy and a girl, they would be able to pick out the kid.
- dnautics 7y agoThat's not how 23andme works, they don't sequence your whole genome, just selected high variance segments.
- ryanmercer 7y agohttps://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dna-from-genealogy-site-used-to-catch-suspected-golden-state-killer-1.4637726 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dna-from-genealogy-site-used-t... They caught him because a relative had submitted their DNA. >Investigators compared the DNA collected from a crime scene of the Golden State Killer to online genetic profiles and found a match: a relative of the man police have identified as Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who was arrested Tuesday at his suburban Sacramento home. The same sort of scenario is possible for medical related things. "John Smith has these health risks, oh look he's listed as the father of our client Jane smith so she likely carries these health risks. Adjust her rate/drop her policy". That said, I willingly gave my DNA to 23andme & Ancestry.com, I find the stuff interesting and worth the potential future risks. Once whole genome falls below a few hundred dollars I plan to have that done too.
- adenner 7y agoHalf of it at least
- haihaibye 7y agoThey already have 1/2 of your kids DNA.
- joejerryronnie 7y agoSure, but the other half could be Martian or Roman God DNA and they'd never know!
- jjeaff 7y agoNah, half is plenty to identify someone. If one of your kids sent in a sample today with a fake name, it would pair you up immediately and identify that they are your children.
- 0xCMP 7y agoIIRC you can request the data to be deleted. You have no way of knowing if it's been done correctly, but at least it's something you could do to prevent your kid's DNA from effectively being there.
- ianferrel 7y agoThis is definitely worth doing. It won't protect you from nefarious actors with the data right now, but it will potentially protect you from nefarious actors who may someday get ahold of the db.
- jedberg 7y agoI seem to remember reading that even when they delete your data, they keep your sample. So really all it does is prevent you from getting it.
- testplzignore 7y agoThis is not correct and in fact is the exact opposite. By default, they destroy the sample after analyzing it.
- jellicle 7y agoAfter account closure: "23andMe and our third party genotyping laboratory will retain your genetic information, date of birth, and sex as required for compliance with applicable legal obligations, including the U.S. Federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA), California Business and Professional Code Section 1265, and College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation requirements. 23andMe will retain limited information related to your data deletion request, such as your email address and Account Deletion Request Identifier, as necessary to fulfill your request and for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims." So they'll retain your DNA info and personally identifying info that you provided, forever. But the physical sample will be destroyed.
- ab_testing 7y agoIf your kids were born in the United States,the states already has their genetic information. https://www.babysfirsttest.org/newborn-screening/states https://www.babysfirsttest.org/newborn-screening/states
- 0xffff2 7y agoThe US Government already has my DNA thanks to my military service. I very much hope that they aren't sharing it with private companies though. Despite the government having my DNA I would still never give it to 23 and me.
- ajphdiv 7y agoThere are very strict laws on how that DNA can be used. Only to identify remains. You can also request it be destroyed: https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Research-and-Innovation/Armed-Forces-Medical-Examiner-System/DoD-DNA-Registry/Repository-of-Specimen-Samples-for-the-Identification-of-Remains/Specimen-Destruction-Request https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Research-and-I...
- ci5er 7y agoI would be shocked if IAFIS didn't have that stored in South Carolina strip-mall hosted database like all the other biometrics they can get from birth, disease, criminal activity, police, federal and military service. The feds do love their biometric data.
- untog 7y agoThat page doesn't say they store it? In any case, the government having this data and a private, for profit company having this data feels like two quite different things.
- big_chungus 7y agoCertainly, they're different. I'm pretty confident about a company's profit motive; not so much with the government which changes every few years. I don't like a company having it (and will never take such a test), but like the government even less. The government's the one that can bust down my door at 3 AM, haul me away, and shoot me if I resist.
- JohnFen 7y agoI'm similar. My sister pressured me into doing it about 5 years ago. These days, I really regret that I gave in and did it.
- collyw 7y agoSurely most of the interesting stuff would be shared between you and your sister assuming you have both parents the same.
- JohnFen 7y agoShe wanted me to do it instead of her because you can get more information that she cares about from men than women, due to certain things linked to sex chromosomes.
- 29athrowaway 7y agoYour kids can also be identified from your DNA.
- a_imho 7y agoWhat was your opinion 6/7 years ago about the people raising these concerns? Were you aware back then that sometime in the future you will (probably) regret it?
- tinus_hn 7y agoNot to worry, it’s a bit doubtful submitting DNA samples isn’t going to be obligatory at some point in the future. You can easily solve a lot of crimes with that.
- kenjackson 7y agoThe technology is here now. If a bad actor wants your data they can easily get it without you submitting anything. Unless you protect your bodily fluids I think you should generally already consider your dna compromised.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoTIL: A handful of opt-in companies can test DNA, ergo, all DNA is compromised so just roll over. Presumably someone will be following behind me next week to hoover up any bodily fluids I leave when I get Starbucks, and on my way home from the gym.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoSince I'm a boring white male who isn't currently angering any "actors" of significant size I'm not too worried about that. I would be much more worried about 23 and me sharing my DNA than James Bond busting through my window and stealing my poop for DNA.