Live data from Hacker News

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

buzzfeednews.com

161–170 of 331 posts

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

#161
post #62

Few people taking theses tests understand or care about the privacy-destroying effect of what they're doing to themselves and their families. For example, this is from the AncestryDNA (different company) terms of service: By submitting User Provided Content to AncestryDNA, you grant AncestryDNA and the Ancestry Group Companies a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable, transferable license to host, transfer…

>what they're doing to themselves and their families. This only encourages me. My DNA is on record in various places, and if any relative of mine commits a crime I want the honor of being the person who fucked them and sent them to prison. I would tout the event as an esteemed accomplishment. Everyone seems to be worried about a sci-fi movie where clones are made from cheek swabs or corporations use DNA to deny certa…

And what happens when you insurance company drops you because of potential chronic illness or an employer doest call you back.

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

#162
post #62

Few people taking theses tests understand or care about the privacy-destroying effect of what they're doing to themselves and their families. For example, this is from the AncestryDNA (different company) terms of service: By submitting User Provided Content to AncestryDNA, you grant AncestryDNA and the Ancestry Group Companies a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable, transferable license to host, transfer…

>what they're doing to themselves and their families. This only encourages me. My DNA is on record in various places, and if any relative of mine commits a crime I want the honor of being the person who fucked them and sent them to prison. I would tout the event as an esteemed accomplishment. Everyone seems to be worried about a sci-fi movie where clones are made from cheek swabs or corporations use DNA to deny certa…

As a German, I see many problems with this point of view. What is a crime can change fast, and it can also mean just being of the wrong group. Don't think it can't and won't happen again.

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

#163
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until another regime shows up that decides to neuter or eradicate people with a specific trait.

Isn't this an argument against doing anything except living the life of a hermit deep in the woods? Have a drivers license? Murderous regime will know where you live and come kill you. Use the internet via an ISP? Murderous regime will know what you look at and come kill you.

History is littered with attempts at eradicating certain ethnicities and purging those deemed genetically inferior.

> Use the internet via an ISP? Murderous regime will know what you look at and come kill you.

This is a legitimate concern for some, hence why things like Tor exist. We don't just throw our hands up in the air and go, "What can be done?" We acknowledge that risk exists and try to mitigate it.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most notoriously, Brandon Mayfield, an American lawyer, was wrongly linked by four fingerprint experts to the 2004 Madrid train bombing. He was arrested and detained for two weeks, before investigators realised that an Algerian man, Ouhnane Daoud, was the real source of the print. https://theconversation.com/fingerprinting-to-solve-crimes-n... Should law enforcement be prohibited from fingerprinting objects found at…

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171005111100.h... Fingerprints lack scientific basis for legal certainty More research into validity of fingerprint comparisons needed Date: October 5, 2017 Source: Carnegie Mellon University Summary: A new report on the quality of latent fingerprint analysis says that courtroom testimony and reports stating or even implying that fingerprints collected from a crime scene…

Which is why DNA and fingerprint evidence is so valuable as corroborating evidence (person x dna was at the scene and their car was seen at the area), and so hopeless as a dragnet. If everyone in the USA was in a DNA database almost every test would show multiple matches.

Then there is the issue of transference. Person x dna found on housemate y's underwear... rape or shared washing machine?

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it is already illegal for genetic information to be used as a qualification for employment. (a) Discrimination Based on Genetic Information.--It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer-- (1) to fail or refuse to hire, or to discharge, any employee, or otherwise to discriminate against any employee with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment of the emplo…

You are only thinking about now. Do you think things will be the same in 20 years? Best of luck.

We all need that luck.

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

#166
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applaud your thinking. But in the real world, things can get ugly very very quickly as the original commenter said. Even worse, imagine your DNA results score being used as part of employment qualification checks! When the greed of $$ is involved, ethics take a backseat in almost all corporate decision making, and good willed but naive persons get trampled.

In the US, it is already illegal for genetic information to be used as a qualification for employment. (a) Discrimination Based on Genetic Information.--It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer-- (1) to fail or refuse to hire, or to discharge, any employee, or otherwise to discriminate against any employee with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment of the emplo…

It's pretty easy to not hire someone and say it was for something other than something you found in a DNA sample.

Your putting the onus on me to prove that it was explicitly the results of my test that caused me not to be hired.

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

#167
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GINA's effective -- now. But what if it goes the way of the endangered preexisting condition exclusion? Parties are already chopping pieces of that latter protection away under the guise of short term policies.

GINA was voted into law 509-1 (Ron Paul being the sole dissenter), it was hardly controversial. >what if it goes the way of the endangered preexisting condition exclusion? Then insurance companies will simply demand DNA to be insured. Same way car insurance companies demand financial information (through credit bureaus) in order to insure you in places where it's legal to do so (which is the vast majority of the US s…

Legally of course you're right, and I suspect you already know about the Medical Information Bureau's repository of adverse health info used right now.

Where we'd part company I guess is in seeing an equivalency of consequences in the lack of car as compared to the lack of health insurance.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably wrong to think of DNA as personal property. Its public use more closely resembles a commons which is shared by many. We don't give individuals the right to pollute air, for instance, simply because they own property that has air on it. Likewise we should develop principles for information which when combined with other information can be used to transgress against 3rd parties' enjoyment of their own pr…

>It is probably wrong to think of DNA as personal property. Are you kidding? Is there anything else more personal than THE VERY THING THAT DEFINES WHAT YOU ARE AS A PHYSICAL BEING to a level of detail that science may never fully understand it? Other than one's own thoughts, I, personally, cannot think of something more personal. Conflating this with air pollution is simply nonsensical.

Is there anything quite as shared as DNA? You share 99.xxx percent with everyone else. You share a significant portion with other species. Other living things.

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

#169
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because perfect information makes insurances useless. Insurances work because we know that most people have roughly the same chance, plus or minus a bit, to get royally fucked in life by disease, acts of God, human maliciousness and all that. That means that when someone gets the rough end of the stick, the entire group helps to pay to keep them on their feet. If we have perfect (or near-perfect) knowledge, what woul…

> That means that when someone gets the rough end of the stick, the entire group helps to pay to keep them on their feet. That's exactly what I meant, government should be that entity that helps those on the rough end of the stick. Riding on the misinformation of life insurance company is not a solution either

> > Riding on the misinformation of life insurance company is not a solution either

But this is the very and only concept of insurance: misinformation on misfortune...

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably wrong to think of DNA as personal property. Its public use more closely resembles a commons which is shared by many. We don't give individuals the right to pollute air, for instance, simply because they own property that has air on it. Likewise we should develop principles for information which when combined with other information can be used to transgress against 3rd parties' enjoyment of their own pr…

>It is probably wrong to think of DNA as personal property. Are you kidding? Is there anything else more personal than THE VERY THING THAT DEFINES WHAT YOU ARE AS A PHYSICAL BEING to a level of detail that science may never fully understand it? Other than one's own thoughts, I, personally, cannot think of something more personal. Conflating this with air pollution is simply nonsensical.

I think you're missing an important way of looking at DNA. It is clear that most people view the details in their DNA as being specific, private information about themselves and want to have control of what can be done with it.

DNA is also shared, however. A relative can currently choose to reveal private information in their DNA that also reveals information that you consider private in your DNA. This is the way in which DNA has a shared or commons aspect.

My point is that the shared nature of DNA means we have to look outside of individual actions to preserve the privacy rights that many seem to want preserved. In other words, I shouldn't be able to use my DNA to reveal private information about anyone else.

Post reply on HN