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One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

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Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#3
All of the at-home DNA testing companies include this in their license agreements, including the ability to use your DNA in case any of your relatives might be accused of a crime.

This is one case in which you definitely want to read the license before you sign up... then throw that test tube in the trash!

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#4
I am torn on this, as on the one hand it does violate privacy to a very large degree and provide massive power to the government. Things I am very much against.

On the other hand, essentially all this does is provide law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals via physical traits as opposed to the contents of their mind such as forcing someone to unlock a phone which I am very against.

Assuming DNA technology is advanced enough to provide few false positives (which I am not sure it is) and prosecution is based on additional concrete evidence as well I think I am fine with this. I am not ok with this being accepted as all that is needed to bring charges but as a means to narrow the suspect pool.

If the company did not disclose this in massive font to potential customers ahead of time, then I do think this company should very quickly go out of business.

The slippery slope though is a near Gattaca situation where now law enforcement and government can screen people for genetics flaws and make hiring decisions etc. based on them. Private companies should absolutely have no access to this data unless it is for scientific research and highly anonymized and customers have agreed to allow it.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#5

I really can't tell if we are headed towards a "1984" dystopia, a "Brave New World" dystopia, a Black Mirror "Nosedive" dystopia, or now a "GATTACA" dystopia. It seems like we're headed to a horrible hybrid combination of all of the above.

I would bet for "brave new world", because there's plenty of places ("islands") to leave a modern society and live your life without google, DNA tests, antibiotics or anything else.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#6

I really can't tell if we are headed towards a "1984" dystopia, a "Brave New World" dystopia, a Black Mirror "Nosedive" dystopia, or now a "GATTACA" dystopia. It seems like we're headed to a horrible hybrid combination of all of the above.

Well I think the government sells us fear aka-1984 and the tech world sells us pleasure aka-Fahrenheit 451.

Really it’s just two sides of the same coin. And that coin is control.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#7
post #3

All of the at-home DNA testing companies include this in their license agreements, including the ability to use your DNA in case any of your relatives might be accused of a crime. This is one case in which you definitely want to read the license before you sign up... then throw that test tube in the trash!

It doesn't really matter what you do personally. If any of your relatives submit their DNA, you're compromised just the same.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#9

I am torn on this, as on the one hand it does violate privacy to a very large degree and provide massive power to the government. Things I am very much against. On the other hand, essentially all this does is provide law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals via physical traits as opposed to the contents of their mind such as forcing someone to unlock a phone which I am very against. A…

I think if anything it points to the fallacy that not allowing the government to collect this type of data, but allowing corporations to collect it, ends up with the same result as allowing the government to collect this data itself. All we've really accomplished is making things cheaper for the government as the private sector is footing the bill for collection and storage.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#10

I am torn on this, as on the one hand it does violate privacy to a very large degree and provide massive power to the government. Things I am very much against. On the other hand, essentially all this does is provide law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals via physical traits as opposed to the contents of their mind such as forcing someone to unlock a phone which I am very against. A…

> potentially quickly identify violent criminals via physical traits

Western civilization requires warrants supported by probable cause, because history has proved the hard way that those are not the kind of people the state would be identifying if left to its own devices.

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