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There are plenty of legitimate reasons people want to protect their genomic privacy, bioethicist George Annas told Tech Insider. It’s not just your medical records and genomic data that are personal, he explained — though many would be uncomfortable with sharing that information with acquaintances, coworkers, and employers.
But there are other things too. Genetic data might reveal something unexpected in a family with regard to paternity or adoption, Annas says. He asks: “What does it mean to have a genetic connection to your children?” If someone needed a sperm or egg donor to become pregnant, would they want that information easily accessed by anyone who looked at a database or who could do a basic DNA sequence with a machine bought at the drugstore?
DNA data banks, places where genomic information is stored for research purposes (in the case of science companies) or for identification (government or police banks) mean that people’s genetic blueprints are more and more frequently stored in computer systems of varying security.
These genome databases are essential for researchers because they need to compare as many genomes as possible to pick out the important patterns that explain a trait or disease. That’s how genomic science advances. In most cases, people agree to have their data included in these databases because identifying information is supposed to be removed.
But there’s reason to think that these systems aren’t as secure as we might hope.
Read full, original post: Modern genetics means you should say goodbye to privacy
