Breach exposed more than one million DNA profiles on a major genealogy database

Post by stickfigure » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #34

philmcc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hunch is that if this information is used against you, you'd never know. First scenario that comes to mind: The insurance company that gives you an extremely high quote because you come back as "high risk" from a 3rd party company that they use to vet applications, and that 3rd party company uses your genetic predisposition for a condition.

This requires the insurance company to be doing something illegal and for it to really cause damage all their competitors have to be doing it as well. If this ever becomes widespread, it would be quickly obvious when a large number of ostensibly healthy people are given quotes that match their genetic profile but not their medical history. I'm just not sure that is a reasonable fear.

Post by nickff » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

all_blue_chucks wrote: post #61

loughnane wrote: post #3

This is why I’ve been putting off getting my genome sequenced. One breach and it’s out there forever. I’ve heard good things about nebula[0] as a way to get an anonymous genome but have yet to be motivated enough to take the plunge [0] https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing/

What is the impact of having your DNA known? As far as I can tell the worst case scenarios are finding out you have to pay child support or getting placed at the scene of a crime. If those risks don't apply to you, who cares?

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #53

acwan93 wrote: post #51

I’ve always wondered if this were a worthy business proposition, cause I would definitely buy a product like this: Basically all of the features of 23AndMe/Ancestry/etc, but done offline. You’re given an app to download online, provided all of the hardware needed to spit in a tube, and get the same results. No data stored on a cloud server, and no centralized database of everyone’s DNA. That’s probably where the real…

I think you're missing the part where you have to send the tube to a lab to do the actual sequencing. At that point they have your data, and even if there were to be a provider that says they don't keep it, that's about as credible as all the VPNs which "don't keep logs" where we later discover, whoops, they lied...

Post by ddevault » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 2:05 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #34

philmcc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hunch is that if this information is used against you, you'd never know. First scenario that comes to mind: The insurance company that gives you an extremely high quote because you come back as "high risk" from a 3rd party company that they use to vet applications, and that 3rd party company uses your genetic predisposition for a condition.

This requires the insurance company to be doing something illegal and for it to really cause damage all their competitors have to be doing it as well. If this ever becomes widespread, it would be quickly obvious when a large number of ostensibly healthy people are given quotes that match their genetic profile but not their medical history. I'm just not sure that is a reasonable fear.

Post by theCodeStig » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

loughnane wrote: post #3

This is why I’ve been putting off getting my genome sequenced. One breach and it’s out there forever. I’ve heard good things about nebula[0] as a way to get an anonymous genome but have yet to be motivated enough to take the plunge [0] https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing/