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Thank you for finding that, Karunamon. It is nice that their website includes reassuring language. But really, how stable is that policy in the face of changi

Thank you for finding that, Karunamon. It is nice that their website includes reassuring language. But really, how stable is that policy in the face of changing corporate owners, changing political administration (romney?), changing supreme court justices, changing geopolitics? Genome data is of permanent importance. To be able to, even in 50 years, look back at genome records of today, will still be very valuable (especially when combined with genealogy records...). Look at privacy trends, storage trends, and trends in govt accountability and transparency. Make no mistake, once our sequences are in corporate databases, there is no going back. I look forward to user-driven cryptographic genome tools, which will allow us to inspect our own genomes, while maintaining personal control over our entire genome (ie., never having to hand the whole sequence over to a commercial or govt entity).

Karunamon 14y ago
>But really, how stable is that policy in the face of changing corporate owners, changing political administration (romney?), changing supreme court justices, changing geopolitics? That's a valid point, but a few things reassure me. Firstly that confidentiality cert from DHHS probably isn't going to be made useless by a political entity any time soon (and I'd assume, though would need to research, that such a cert would also apply to any buyers should 23AM get picked up by someone else, and probably carries some requirements for them as well) Even then, I doubt within the next 60 or so years left on my lifespan that there will be any shenanigans in that area... and after I'm gone, they can do whatever the hell they want with my sequence :) I'd imagine that, given enough time and cost reduction, services like this will become nationalized, where your genome is sequenced at birth for identity and health purposes.

Karunamon 14y ago

>But really, how stable is that policy in the face of changing corporate owners, changing political administration (romney?), changing supreme court justices, changing geopolitics? That's a valid point, but a few things reassure me. Firstly that confidentiality cert from DHHS probably isn't going to be made useless by a political entity any time soon (and I'd assume, though would need to research, that such a cert would also apply to any buyers should 23AM get picked up by someone else, and probably carries some requirements for them as well) Even then, I doubt within the next 60 or so years left on my lifespan that there will be any shenanigans in that area... and after I'm gone, they can do whatever the hell they want with my sequence :) I'd imagine that, given enough time and cost reduction, services like this will become nationalized, where your genome is sequenced at birth for identity and health purposes.