Have you done a genealogy test?

[PACOX]

Law enforcement agencies around the country have for the past few years eagerly latched onto consumer-facing DNA sites as a rich repository of information to help them close cases. Many of those sites have been allowing users to adopt privacy settings and restricting what data they allow police to access, but a first-of-its-kind search warrant may blow those users' data banks wide open.

Police in Orlando, Florida, obtained a warrant this summer to search DNA site GEDmatch and review data on all of its users—about a million people, The New York Times reports. Privacy advocates are now concerned that police will continue to get broad warrants for DNA sites, including larger peers such as 23andme or Ancestry that have much larger pools of user data.

GEDmatch hit the spotlight in 2018, when DNA data from its site led to the eventual arrest of a man suspected to be the "Golden State Killer," responsible for dozens of rapes and murders in California between 1976 and 1986.

"Although we were not approached by law enforcement or anyone else about this case or about the DNA, it has always been GEDmatch's policy to inform users that the database could be used for other uses, as set forth in the Site Policy," site co-founder Curtis Rogers told Ars at the time. "It is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including information of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes," he added, saying that anyone not comfortable with that should delete their data from the site.

In the wake of that attention-grabbing case, GEDmatch changed its policies in May 2018 to make it less easy for police to access their data. Users now have to opt in to having their data made available to police; information they upload is set to private by default. Rogers told the NYT that as of October, less than 15% of current users, 185,000 out of 1.3 million, have opted in to sharing their data with police.

That limitation has frustrated law enforcement, though, and the Orlando detective in July asked a Florida judge to approve a warrant that would let him search the entire GEDmatch database regardless of users' privacy settings, and the judge agreed. The site reportedly complied to the search demand within 24 hours.

Full story.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...dna-with-cops/

Have you ever done one of those DNA genealogy tests? Did you think your data was private? A judge in FL said, 'oh you guys need DNA? Here's a search warrant that gives you access to a companies entire database'. And the company said, 'sure, have at it.' No legal challenge whatsoever.

All I have to say is no duh these companies were stockpiling DNA data for 3rd party use but now it's official.

So have you had a genealogy test done?

[Doctor Amadeus]

Yep, but I've not broken any laws that that I have gotten caught and when i did, I always paid my debt. That said this is all really good information to consider before hand,.

[PACOX]

Yep, but I've not broken any laws that that I have gotten caught and when i did, I always paid my debt. That said this is all really good information to consider before hand,.

Its mostly a privacy and limiting abuse of authority issue for me.

I haven't done anything wrong but I don't want law enforcement just looking up my information because they can.

People are doing tests without the intention of becoming someone like Henrietta Lacks. Brief history, her cells were used without consent, albeit important but many breakthroughs and sometimes profits were made without a mention of her (or to her family) for decades.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

I'm concerned about what can be done without someones (informed) consent.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Its mostly a privacy and limiting abuse of authority issue for me.

I haven't done anything wrong but I don't want law enforcement just looking up my information because they can.

People are doing tests without the intention of becoming someone like Henrietta Lacks. Brief history, her cells were used without consent, albeit important but many breakthroughs and sometimes profits were made without a mention of her (or to her family) for decades.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

I'm concerned about what can be done without someones (informed) consent.

Yeah I agree with you for the most part and I am pretty familiar with Henrietta Lacks. It certainly puts things in perspective but honestly in terms of privacy and personal rights I don't think it's something we can have back.

Pandora's box is open, last night I was listening to some woman who works as a "Councilor" complaining about HIPAA laws because as she described it, "It didn't allow for mental health professionals to notify authorities" for potentially violent patients.

[Rennadrel]

No, why would I? I have a written family history researched back 600+ years to the Dukedom of England. Apparently one of my ancestors was a bastard child

[PACOX]

Pandora's box is open, last night I was listening to some woman who works as a "Councilor" complaining about HIPAA laws because as she described it, "It didn't allow for mental health professionals to notify authorities" for potentially violent patients.

Not really to go off on a tangent but thats not necessarily true. HIPPA allows you to share 'need to know' information. So here involuntary hospitalization of someone who might be going through a mental health crisis is a thing. I could definitely tell the police my job title, the clients diagnosis, and why I believe hospitalization is warranted without violating HIPAA.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Not really to go off on a tangent but thats not necessarily true. HIPPA allows you to share 'need to know' information. So here involuntary hospitalization of someone who might be going through a mental health crisis is a thing. I could definitely tell the police my job title, the clients diagnosis, and why I believe hospitalization is warranted without violating HIPAA.

The way she was explaining it is that short of life or immediate death situation, HIPPA shouldn't have that burden or really any. My point being is that as long as their is data and information for people to have, you will always have that element now where people aren't ok with what you shown about DNA testing, but then you will always have people that feel like they should be entitled to that kind of information, of course provided it isn't them or their privacy being violated.

Bottom line is that it isn't going away because people are far too invested in the power and ability to pray or violate the privacy of others, even if it's at the expense and ignorance of the same being applied towards them.

[Ripster42]

No, and I encourage everyone else not to do one that's not through a doctor which provides hipaa protections for the gathered data. The fact that police were allowed access to everyone's data is fucked up. The most that should be allowed to happen is that the police give a profile to the company and they perform the search. Your average medical record doesn't have near the amount of information on you as your dna.

[Strawberry]

Yes, I have done it through 23andme.
No, I don't care that it might be used to create a clone of me who will mine on the asteroid belt.

I also have cameras in my apartment and Amazon Echo.
People are overreacting about their privacy.
It's a brand new world. You have no privacy.

[Daedius]

Nopes .

[Ghostpanther]

Its mostly a privacy and limiting abuse of authority issue for me.

I haven't done anything wrong but I don't want law enforcement just looking up my information because they can.

People are doing tests without the intention of becoming someone like Henrietta Lacks. Brief history, her cells were used without consent, albeit important but many breakthroughs and sometimes profits were made without a mention of her (or to her family) for decades.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

I'm concerned about what can be done without someones (informed) consent.

I think you bring up a valid point. Not something they should be able to do as it is certainly a invasion of your privacy. But our privacy lost is only going to become more rampant.

But no, I have not had any DNA test done that I am aware of.

[Orby]

I don't think I trust anyone enough to hold onto it... You want my blood suckers come and get it :P

[Monster Hunter]

Yea I did one though I know the history of my dad's side right back to the doomsday book, my mum was adopted so we had no idea, she always had a slight year round tan, and went dark in the summer, my self im pale in winter and golden brown in summer, both me and mum have had the odd racist remark in the summer and we often wondered if there was some mediteranian in us.

To cut a long story short turns out both my mum and dad have larger than averedge amounts of early Briton DNA. And we have no trace of DNA from the rest of Europe since the last ice age and that's why I my mum and dad tan really dark.

Which makes it a tad ironic the odd occasion in mid summer when some edl shit starts something because technicaly my blood line was here first.

On the point of using my DNA.... Meh couldn't care less tbh, I don't plan to commit any crimes of the severity that would Warrent using DNA, bar the odd drunken brawl and recreational drug use both of which the police in the UK generally don't have the resources and arn't interested in, I don't cause any one any bother, I would never steal and I'd never instigate an altercation, and I generally don't have the passion for anything that would push me to murder.

[Lochton]

Full story.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...dna-with-cops/

Have you ever done one of those DNA genealogy tests? Did you think your data was private? A judge in FL said, 'oh you guys need DNA? Here's a search warrant that gives you access to a companies entire database'. And the company said, 'sure, have at it.' No legal challenge whatsoever.

All I have to say is no duh these companies were stockpiling DNA data for 3rd party use but now it's official.

So have you had a genealogy test done?

Not yet, can't make up our minds of which ones to do.

[horbindr]

doing those test is basically like getting an expensive hand reading or horoscope done.

i'd do one for funsies, but you can bet your ass your DNA will end up in the US/Chinese/Russian databases somehow.

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No but police have my DNA on record after I accepted fines for carrying a knife on me, for protection. Had to swab my mouth.

oO that's quite a low barrier to collect DNA. is there a potential prison sentence on breaking knife laws in sweden or something?

[smityx]

You mean the mainly pander to white people thing to see if you have any "non whiteness" in the tree to then attempt to claim/obsess over it to virtue signal and try and join in on the whole I'm a victim/oppressed now to thing happening. No I haven't.

- - - Updated - - -

doing those test is basically like getting an expensive hand reading or horoscope done.

i'd do one for funsies, but you can bet your ass your DNA will end up in the US/Chinese/Russian databases somehow.

Your forgetting a bigger one that will effect you more directly. Insurance. Imagine if they knew you had a predisposition to heart disease or other future genetic or medical issues.

[Zaktar]

Dad was adopted, and never knew anything about his bio-family; he used one of those sites and pretty quickly connected to them thanks to it. I guess there are some risks, though if it were me I can't say I would be too sad if it were used for cancer research or something similar. As to the other nefarious possible uses, well life is full of risks, perhaps this will have turned out to be a poor one, but I doubt it and the reward has been pretty significant. What was a void in our history for 60+ years is now filled in.

[horbindr]

Your forgetting a bigger one that will effect you more directly. Insurance. Imagine if they knew you had a predisposition to heart disease or other future genetic or medical issues.

still pretty confident in those privacy laws where i live. (though i do scratch my head when a bacon grocery store tries to sell health insurance lol)

but yeah, in general it's just not worth the risk. data honestly collected gets abused for unintented purpose in the future all the time.

[PC2]

They're only accessing the most unique and fundamental information that relates to you. What can go wrong!

I sympathize with the police and investigators who just want to do their job, but I would weigh the overall risk of abuse as probably higher than the benefits of catching a few extra criminals. It's hard to say without knowing how the information is handled. One possible privacy measure is to never store genetic data with the label of the person, that way they could still sell data as a source of revenue but totally stripped of the ability to damage their clients.

[Volatilis]

No i dont feel the need to find out I have 1% Inca in me so I can claim im a minority and can feel special.

Plus i'm not in a hurry to hand over my DNA to whoever pays or asks for it from them.