Hacker News Reader

There's no way you can keep your genome private in the long term. Even today anyone can get DNA samples from you without your knowledge or consent, but in the near future it will be trivial to collect and sequence anyone's DNA using an iPhone.

Besides, the same knowledge that makes attacks possible also makes defense possible.

View on HN

Surreptitious DNA collection requires some level of targeted effort: someone must have a prior interest in you specifically, which is unlikely for most persons. Uploading your DNA to a database exposes you (and your relatives) to all sorts of Birthday-Problem-like mischief from persons and organizations trawling the database.

The best defense to the current threat landscape (privacy violations related to insurance, employment, and the law) is to define your genome-related queries as narrowly as possible and type/sequence only those relevant loci/regions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com