Background: I am not much of a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think the government is about to implant ID chips in us to track our every movement. I take privacy fairly seriously; I share things on social media, but I think about what I’m sharing. I don’t particularly like my phone company knowing where I’ve been, but I’m not willing to give up the convenience of a cell phone because of that. I research a company before giving them my info.
So that said, am I slipping into fringe territory if I have concerns about sending my DNA to Ancestry.com? A relative tried it and found it fascinating, so they got test kits for several of us in the family. I was all ready to send in my spit, but now am wondering if I want a company to have my sequenced DNA in their database.
The part of me that thinks this is paranoia says it would be easy enough for someone to get my DNA if they wanted it, the company has a decent privacy policy, I’m not planning on committing any crimes that could lead to law enforcement requesting my records from them, our privacy isn’t going to degrade to the point that insurance companies will have access to this data in my lifetime.
The other side of me thinks privacy isn’t simply for law-breakers, the government has shown willingness to compromise individuals’ privacy, and who knows where medical care and records privacy will be in 20 years.
Both your pro and cons are somewhat reasonable. I’d add on the pro side that they don’t do a full genomic sequencing and are unlikely to be keeping your genetic material on file to do so later.
I think if companies start really putting DNA to nefarious uses it’s not going to be old ancestry.com data that does people in.
I agree, in general, with your paranoia. If I ever sent in my sample (which I wouldn’t) I’d use a fake name.
My primary paranoia, however, is that I don’t believe they actually give you an accurate history. I feel this even more with the doggie DNA testing than human, but I just don’t believe that the science is where they think it is. That there is enough of an accurate database to link a DNA profile to a region. I think they fake it, and there’s no way for you, the average user, to be sure. Thecommercial where the guy thinks he was German, but was really Irish, is sold as a success, but I just see it as typical inaccurate useless results.
Yeah, there’s this. It does seem a little fortune teller-like to me: hit a few things right, and people will believe all of it.
But I think it’s also gotten significantly more accurate than it used to be. My relative’s assessment hit the mark on the things she knows about her history, which makes her believe the things it said that she didn’t know before. But who knows.
And fortune tellers can still be fun even when you know it’s not true.