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The problem here is that it sold the DNA to third parties. The government 'data watchdog' appears to be stepping in to stop this overt failure. Of course, all
by verisimi 5y ago
The problem here is that it sold the DNA to third parties. The government 'data watchdog' appears to be stepping in to stop this overt failure.
Of course, all the testing agencies are collecting DNA. The records will be somewhere.
Do we think that government agencies will be able to access these? Will the NHS? Will government access even be stated in the agreements that they signed to be 'government-approved'? Will the data be available to other companies down the line for research? Or when they are bought up by a big corporation?
The point is that this is another erosion of privacy, another cat is out of the bag. It is all very foreseeable.
Once we sanction the collection of private information, eg DNA for health! to prevent child abuse! to stop terrorism! the over-reach is never withdrawn. Government access to your dna, online record, etc, etc - becomes the new normal. All while the actions of the government are ever more hidden - eg secret courts, collection of data, etc
In every instance of privacy erosion, a plausibly valid excuse is supplied by the government. But it is a one-way street. Why we continuously accept government justifications of excessive over-reach amazes me. But that we do in general (I don't!) destroys privacy for everyone.
- roneoo 5y ago> Of course, all the testing agencies are collecting DNA. Source please!
- dr_dshiv 5y agoNone needed. Your snot and saliva has your DNA in it.
- peteradio 5y ago1) Is it legal? 2) Is it cost effective to collect and store? If both 1 and 2 are true then why wouldn't they do it? That's of course different from asserting "all testing agencies are collecting data", but are we to assume few are doing this collection?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- steerablesafe 5y ago> Of course, all the testing agencies are collecting DNA. The records will be somewhere. The news is from the UK. One can order tests by post, do the tests themselves and only report the test results (either the free ones, but there are travel tests available too). The testing firm never gets the physical test sample.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- special_garbage 5y agoThat’s just the antigen tests, for a PCR test you still need to send it back
- exhilaration 5y ago> Of course, all the testing agencies are collecting DNA. The records will be somewhere. Sorry buddy, you obviously have no idea how expensive it would be either sequence the DNA coming back with millions of covid tests OR store millions of swabs in conditions to preserve said DNA, for future sequencing. There's absolutely no way "all the testing agencies are collecting DNA".
- special_garbage 5y agoI don’t know about ‘all the agencies collecting DNA’, but they already should have freezers for storing samples, and sequencing is not the only way of obtaining genetic data. Microarrays are super cheap if ordered in bulk and have great coverage. Though even with sequencing they might make a profit depending on how much they are selling the data for …
- rob_c 5y agoChances are that given the cost quite a few are simply doing a basic sequence themselves (not a full strand) and selling on the data from this, which, whilst it sounds harmless is horribly unethical
- vba616 5y agoAn interesting disclaimer on a covid-related app from a state government in the US, is that since they are not a health care provider, legally, HIPAA doesn't apply to them, and they have no obligations regarding health information you share.