[chubasco]

Okay for all the people that are talking about how great this is, try this one.

What if it turns out a company that they sold all of their data to was later contracted by a government to develop biological weapons? And what if they were suddenly able to target those weapons at specific populations because of all the DNA data they had?

Is it still great that they can do this?

EDIT: Here is a concrete hypothetical for people that pretend they don't understand what I am talking about...

Imagine that [oppressive communist superpower] decided that they were tired of all the criticism they get for their treatment of their [minority Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia] population. Rather than overtly mistreat them, they (via third-party contractors) go to the DNA database and find out that members of that population typically share a vulnerability to a dangerous strain of flu to which the general population has a resistance.

Rather than overtly oppress them in camps, they could now just custom tailor diseases to handle the "problem" for them, and not have to suffer the PR backlash.

[Accujack]

That's like saying what if the charity for the homeless to whom people donated money suddenly was found to be a front for a global human trafficking (slave) organization.

People would be rightly outraged and angry, but that doesn't mean they made a mistake by giving their money to the charity.

Everyone makes judgement calls every day, it's the way the world works.

[t_serpico]

The difference here is that your input is used to specifically exploit you and others like you.

[Accujack]

So no difference, then?

[Kliment]

There's a number of charities that have been exposed like this - care homes run by charities have been exposed for sexual abuse and violence, homeless charities have been exposed for selling data to deportation agencies. The situation there is different because people come to those organizations expecting help in a crisis or untenable situation and end up harmed rather than helped. In the case of people giving their genetic data to a for-profit corporation there is the reasonable expectation that that data is not and was never safe because any such organization is a target to friendly or hostile takeovers by organizations that wish to harm the users. So in one case it's a matter of a broken promise, an organization doing the opposite of what its very purpose of existence is, and in the other case it's just capitalism doing what capitalism does.

[Accujack]

> there is the reasonable expectation that that data is not and was never safe

This is key, and not everyone has this expectation when they use these services. Most people do not, and they're not entirely wrong. If you examine the various genetic testing corporations' user agreements, many of them place explicit limits on what happens to original DNA or replicated copies if the company is sold, merged, or otherwise changes. Companies do tend to hold to that kind of legal agreement provided it was sincere in the first place (there's no fine print providing loopholes) because it can get them sued.

Even the companies providing genetic data for research aren't providing the original DNA, only marker or SNP data, and it's probably de-identified to comply with HIPAA and other privacy laws.

The corporation

[streb-lo]

Security through obscurity. That's all you're proposing.

Your DNA is out there. You're constantly leaving your muck wherever you go. As its value increases people will continue to harvest it: your favorite restaurants, your employer, (semi-)public restrooms, etc.

Don't try and put worms in a can, learn how to live with worms.

[Real_S]

This is a legitimate threat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY

If your DNA becomes available to adversaries, you may suddenly find yourself on the front line in a bio-war.

[Gustomaximus]

Its kinda conspiracy theory stuff but there are claims around this:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ethnic_bioweapon#Claimed_biowe...

I would be very surprised if some countries had not looked into this at some level.

[asdff]

you can already do this. there are lots of public databases of data representative of different populations. signatures of different populations are known.

here is one with 20k cancer patients:

https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/organization/ccg/research/s...

[buboard]

the chinese (or asy) government could easily find a few samples from this population, you don't need a whole database.

[fakegalitarian]

If that’s your worst contrived scenario then you’ve only convinced me that this is a good idea. All technology can be used for good and evil, things will get more extreme but continue towards net positive. Your evil scenario is outweighed by the global benefits of medical research.

Next time, just jump straight to saying [oppressive fascist superpower] and [minority ethnic group originating in and culturally affiliated with a small Middle Eastern nation]. We’re still more sensitive to that one.