If You Like Your DNA You Can Keep It--Just Not a Secret

[Doc Safari]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...aring-data-fbi

One Of The Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Secretly Sharing Data With The FBI

Just one week ago, we warned that the government — helped by Congress (which adopted legislation allowing police to collect and test DNA immediately following arrests), President Trump (who signed the Rapid DNA Act into law), the courts (which have ruled that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime), and local police agencies (which are chomping at the bit to acquire this new crime-fighting gadget) — was embarking on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

As it turns out we were right, but we forgot one key spoke of the government's campaign to collect genetic information from as many individuals as possible: "innocent", commercial companies, who not only collect DNA from willing clients, but are also paid for it.

FamilyTreeDNA, one of the pioneers of the growing market for "at home", consumer genetic testing, confirmed a report from BuzzFeed that it has quietly granted the Federal Bureau of Investigation access to its vast trove of nearly 2 million genetic profiles.

While concerns about unrestricted access to genetic information gathered by testing companies had swelled since April, when police used a genealogy website to ensnare a suspect in the decades-old case of the Golden State Killer, that site, GEDmatch, was open-source, meaning police were able to upload crime-scene DNA data to the site without permission. However, the latest arrangement marks the first time a commercial testing company has voluntarily given law enforcement access to user data.

Worse, it did so secretly, without obtaining prior permission from its users.

Thanks to its millions of customers, FamilyTreeDNA’s "cooperation" with the FBI more than doubles the amount of genetic data law enforcement already had access to through GEDmatch. According to BuzzFeed, and as confirmed by the company, on a case-by-case basis the company has agreed to test DNA samples for the FBI and upload profiles to its database, allowing law enforcement to see familial matches to crime-scene samples.

There is one caveat: FamilyTreeDNA said law enforcement may not freely browse genetic data but rather has access only to the same information any user might. Which of course, is ridiculous when the FBI has the same access as every single user.

Needless to say, the genealogy community has expressed dismay.

...(J)ust like search engines and social networks, where the user is the product, and all the information about the user is carefully collected, isolated and stored, then sold to the highest bidder, or quietly handed over to the government, consumer DNA testing has become a giant business: Ancestry.com and 23andMe Inc. alone have sold more than 15 million DNA kits. Concerns about an industry commitment to privacy could hamper the industry’s rapid growth.

My take: Let's not mince words. The East German Stasi used to collect samples of a person's scent, which they kept in sealed jars in case they needed to track the person later.

https://www.dw.com/en/the-stasi-had-...ents/a-2555053

Was scent sampling a method developed by the Stasi?

No, it's a well-known police method used in criminal investigations, but even in the GDR it wasn't allowed to be admitted as evidence and that's why the samples were often collected secretly instead of openly. The problem is not with scent profiling as such, but rather with collecting scents as a precautionary measure in case they can eventually be used in the future. This is what the Stasi did -- they had a giant scent register of dissidents. They really tried to have a sample of everyone who potentially could have said something critical of the state

This is the same thing.

The government wants your DNA, as a way to track you, control you, and in general exercise more power over society as a whole.

Why anyone would trust social media, DNA collection, or any other information clearinghouse in the modern era puzzles me.

[flenna]

Honestly I don't have much sympathy for anyone that sends their DNA into some internet company with an expectation of privacy. Kinda like the "register your guns in case they get stolen, we won't misuse the information" that some city posted not too long ago.

[jmp45]

I can't see how anyone would not think these dna tests are privacy compromised.

[grnamin]

Gattaca!

Sent from my G8341 using Tapatalk

[markm]

Honestly I don't have much sympathy for anyone that sends their DNA into some internet company with an expectation of privacy.

EXACTLY! Dumb as having Siri or Alexa in your house. Beyond idiotic.

[Honu]

I am shocked hang on let me ask my google voice and alexa about this privacy thing hahahahahahahahahah (ditto markm above)

folks paying to get wire tapped and folks paying to get on a database with their DNA reckon I should say FOOLS not FOLKS

maybe go watch that future crime tom cruise movie tonight hahahahaha

[Honu]

come to think of it I just might do the DNA thing not my blood of course just a good sampling I can find in various places including the butcher and on my form say I identify as a deer even though I might be bovine

[AndyLate]

I think most of the military folks (at least in the last 20 years) have DNA on file with uncle Sam anyway.

[Peshawar]

No surprise. Guess what, they're likely to sell it to insurance companies as well. Probably in secret. We'll all be mapped for genetic disorders or predispositions, ranked by risk, and charged accordingly. The most unfortunate part is that even if you don't want to participate, your family might. Which will likely be data that can be largely interpolated. We're in a new age.

[SteyrAUG]

DNA are the new fingerprints and they will get it anyway they can.

I remember schools doing field trips to the police department to see how they work and one of the "fun and game" exercises was getting fingerprinted. Other programs collected school age children fingerprints under the guise of helping to protect them if kidnapped, etc.