I am 100% not serious and do not believe either statement above. I sadly am in the same boat as you and had a blacksheep of a brother who did some sort of crime and as a condition had his DNA taken so I by default am in the system as well.
I never could understand why people would willingly offer their DNA to companies that even if they are not selling that data sooner or later could have that data leak and the consequences could mean being able to afford life and medical insurance or not.
I’m the odd one out on this thread but I just… don’t see why it’s a big deal? All the consequences of my dna leaking seem so extremely theoretical and unlikely that I’m willing to take the risk in exchange for a few minutes of fun reading a report about where my ancestors came from.
This is always framed like people who willingly surrender privacy must not know better or be uneducated about the harms but I think it’s fair for people to just decide they don’t evaluate the harms as very serious.
The example you gave about health insurance is implausible because it’s illegal in the US and I assume other developed countries for insurers to charge different amounts for health coverage based on pre-existing conditions. It strikes me as very, very paranoid to worry that someday my DNA might leak, and there’s something bad in it, and the law will change such that insurers can abuse it, and I for some reason won’t have a job that gives me health insurance anyway. That’s a lot of ands making the probability of that outcome very small.
See [1].
From [1]: > GINA focuses only on one line of insurance—health; it does not prohibit other insurances—life , disability, long-term care (LTC), auto, or property—from using genetic information [...] in 2020, [...] Florida became the first US state to prohibit life, LTC, and disability insurers from using genetic test results to set premiums or to cancel, limit, or deny coverage
To me that means you are not safe.
> and there's something bad in it
This is just gambling. If enough peoples' DNA is out there, you will see the whole-population rate for conditions. You might consider it OK to be unexpectedly unable to buy long-term disability insurance because you have a 50x greater risk for YYYY than the general population.
> [...] and I for some reason won’t have a job that gives me health insurance anyway
This is an extremely privileged attitude. This part seems to me that if you get very ill you *must* continue to work in order to maintain your coverage. Even a highly paid SWE can be laid low by carpal tunnel syndrome.
Why auto or property insurance would be affected by your DNA I can't even begin to imagine.
In practice, in talking to co-workers also applying for the same things, the only people who ever got denied were all obese.
This is all setting aside that, assuming somewhat symmetric distributions of genetically determined traits, half of all people will have above average genetics. The conversation on the Internet always seems to fixate on people being denied coverage or charged more, but that seems to assume pricing models are just plain malicious, in which case they could charge more and deny you anyway, with or without data. Assuming they're actually using the data and building real predictive models, half the population would benefit from insurance companies having more data.
All that said, I would still never submit data to a company like 23andme, and would also never allow the police to have camera feeds of my house, even though I'm extremely confident they would never find a reason to arrest me. It's creepy, feels invasive, and I just don't want it.
That's one of the things I've found odd about these discussions. Most of the concern seems to be about very theoretical things that we don't see in reality. On the other hand, the actual harm I'm seeing from mass surveillance is the fact that social media mobs often come through someone's life and try - often successfully - to ruin them.
The way things currently stand, the fact that I'm unable to delete Hacker News comments is much more of a threat than sending my DNA to 23andMe.
As phrased, I am unable to comment as to whether that statement is accurate, but I will go with it for the sake of the argument.
I chuckled a little, because that one phrase immediately reminded of just how much political capital was spent to even allow 'pre-existing conditions' to be removed as a factor in denying coverage.
What exactly makes you think that law cannot be changed?
Of course it could happen. But even if it did, all the other unlikely events I listed would all have to happen for me to be harmed. The point of my post was that me being harmed due to having given my DNA to 23&me is unlikely, not impossible. Just like it's theoretically possible a brick could fall on my head while walking outside, but I still don't wear a helmet every time I go outside.
Worrying so much about this stuff just feels to me like the tech geek version of preppers who stock their house with guns and canned food in case the apocalypse comes (which never does).
Sprinkle in a bit of 'a white toyota was spotted leaving and he also owns a white Toyota' and you're in for an adventure.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/29/larry-d...
The legal system and the evidence value of DNA profile could adapt to a world where every persons DNA is accessible, but it is a slow process and I doubt it will be done in my life time.
I can play devil's advocate and come up with some level of rationalization along the lines of 'it will help humanity cure cancer' in a handwavy kinda way, but even then one is trading future potential against near 100% guarantee that things do change in regards to what you gave -- that is: even if company is promising today it will not do something with data, a day will come when that will no longer be the case.
The blacksheep example is definitely interesting though and likely a good idea for a police drama episode ( if it wasn't used already ). Edit: And now that I think about it, if it would be made, it would show the the good certainly have nothing to fear indeed.
I think it has been somewhat well established that humans will do a whole lot of nasty without much thinking as long as a higher up tells them to. And this does not touch the simple fact that the companies are not exactly entities governed by morality ( and some would argue that it is not entirely certain if humans are either ).
In short, I think you are wrong.
sure
>In short, I think you are wrong.
so, your technical conclusion is that because people will do bad things when told by authorities they will not need to start any sort of project to integrate the dumped data into their platforms, paying multiple developers for a potentially long time - it will just magically happen because of the power of evil?
I mean I want to believe in the power of evil as much as the next guy, but that's a bit much. And once we go back to the whole "they would need to assemble a team to take advantage of it" which maybe was not that clear at the end of my post then again, no matter how you slice the evil, it would not be worth it.
Because assembling the team to analyze and ingest 23&me data might take a while, cost a good amount of money, might decrease in value over time (or increase in risk) for something that is probably illegal to do in the first place.
Higher ups may want it done, but probably only if it can be done immediately and doesn't cost a lot of money.
Reality: nobody cares about your DNA. It's useless for medical or life insurance companies, they can't discriminate based on the DNA by law. And if it's ever repealed, you can bet that life insurance companies will just start asking for your DNA info anyway.
DNA also doesn't provide actionable intelligence for advertisers that is worth more than a week of your purchase history or your Facebook profile.
However, DNA provides actionable intelligence for _you_. Mostly by highlighting the disease risks and other clinically-significant data (like drug metabolism speed).
Let's rephrase: I never could understand why people would willingly offer their DNA *and the DNA of all those who share some part of their DNA* to for profit companies subject to data breaches, court orders, nefarious employees, etc.
To get information that benefits them.
And from a practical point of view, a lot of my information has been leaked multiple times already. And I'm carrying a phone that tracks my movements to within a few meters all the time. I walk by multiple Ring cameras every day, etc.
Why care about one more privacy leak?
Edit: I was too fast on the comment button and didn't read until the end.
