My first reaction on seeing 23andMe and its workalikes was "why the flying fuck would I want to give my DNA information to a corporate entity in this world of ubiquitous corporate surveillance!?"
I feel like we could easily have something similar to a DNA testing kit that goes with access to a software that analyzes it that meets your description within our lifetime. Sending it to a lab shouldn't be necessary forever
I'm fine with some company that has a lock-tight privacy policy in place. Even better if they just send me the results and keep no database. But that's not what they do. They send it all to the government, and then charge you upsell fees in the form of a subscription to see the same information that they shared with the government without your consent. Okay... You probably gave consent in the 5000 page ToS that you didn't read, but that's an argument for a different day.
Has literally decades of corporate interests revealing they don't know how to secure things not taught you any kind of a lesson?
I don't want a corporate entity of any kind to have my DNA info on file. They're all clowns, or, rather, if they're not clowns now they will be after a single bad quarter when they decide to cut their security team in half.
I don't understand the unforeseen ramifications he's talking about for your entire family. I understand the main fear about uncertainty regarding what happens to the data, which is likely sold to the pharmaceutical sector or Institutions. However, what's the point? I don't support such companies, but it seems like there's a lot of fearmongering without much substance. It's not that different from an ISP or any company collecting data to sell to other companies or institutions. No one expected anything different, and those who did are likely just consumers who don't care about these issues at the end of the day.
It’s not that different from an ISP or any company collecting data to sell to other companies or institutions.
"It's not that different from this thing that's done that's already proven time and again to be an utter shitshow, so we should permit this new thing too!"
I'm beginning to see how COVID-19 killed a million Americans. "It's not that different from the flu, so we shouldn't worry."
There are examples in there. Police grab data off of a random crime scene, then they generate a pic out of that data. They start looking for a culprit.
Now imagine "the black sheep" of the family, a crackhead cousin or a criminal, steals something and kills someone. Police get in, get a swab, and create a portrait that looks exactly like you. Or better yet, they find matches of the DNA and trace it back to you - who went for the service. Suddenly you are in deep shit and need to prove your innocence. Also imagine you are a public figure - a local polititian, headmaster of the school, whatever. Suddenly you hit the news, and everyone "judges" you to be guilty. Media spread it around, you lose your job.
Pretty much everyone, all of society, expected something different. That's why people were so loose with what they gave away, before it became known how insidious the tracking and violation of implicit trust was. That's why we're just now getting legislation into place, 30 years after Google started gobbling up everyone's data. Nobody expected how pervasive the spying would become.
DNA is different. My fingerprints are nothing like my family's fingerprints. Our DNA is very similar.
If your sister does 23 and me, that company, law enforcement, and unknown organizations in the future will all have most of your DNA without your consent.
Must've not yet been a tax requirement when I was a young whippersnapper. Didn't get a SS# until it was needed for my first job at 9, in the coal mines.