Residents concerned about DNA-for-cash transactions in Louisville
wave3.com
wave3.com
Maybe someone had a family member get murdered in a certain area, and now they are paying a private group to collect as many samples as they can to submit to the website. This would allow the killer of their family member to potentially be found. This doesn’t sound completely absurd to me.
Definitely a scam of some sort, but where does the data go?
- FRAUD/SCAM. Example: a dishonest health care provider does expensive screening tests on poor Medicaid-eligible people which it then bills to Medicaid (i.e., to the government).
- CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION. Somebody is collecting DNA in targeted neighborhoods hoping to get the DNA of someone related to an unknown perpetrator whose DNA they have from a crime scene. This is essentially how the Golden State Killer was caught.
- ACTIVISM. This might be also called a "social media experiment" or culture jamming. It could be, for example, a subversive critique on the creation of DNA databases or an attempt to convince the public that mass collection of DNA is not a good thing.
Someone is repeatedly targeting poor/vulnerable people for their DNA and lying about uses.
Someone has an upstream use for that data that pays or saves big money, is illegal, or is unethical. They’re hiding for some reason.
I could also see this being used to poison DNA records in databases like FamilyTreeDNA's, who collaborate with the FBI [1]. What services and databases allow for sending in samples of this type?
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fake-editions...
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, and the fact that the sample-takers claim to be from a private company leans me away from the government, but they could have contracted it out. And I wouldn't put anything past the current administration.
The article doesn't say whether or not people are providing their ID along with the samples, but I'd presume that they are.
The police are allowed to lie to you to get you to consent to a search. (The most common example is claiming they could search w/o consent but you agreeing makes it "easier")
With DNA being part of a human being, it wouldn't make sense for the government to circumvent that amendment with civil forfeiture as it does with non-human property.
I wonder if they are looking for genetic correlates with homeless or marginalization or mental health.
It is surely a study without consent of the participants. Super illegitimate and shady.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2018/12/18/she...
Is the article: "She swiped her co-worker’s coke. Can police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case?" or "She swiped her co-worker’s Coke can. Police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case."
Genetic data security is a real problem, and making it difficult to obtain this sensitive information has real value.
Really, it's not a risk. You won't be able to name a single case of active harm caused by disclosure or sharing of genetic information. The worst thing that is possible is to learn your family isn't what you expected it to be. There have been no other known cases of harm due to genetic disclosure.
This will absolutely change if someone decided that DNA makes for a good way to access your bank account. It is not. It would be no better to key your bank account to an image of your face. Face unlocking phones look to be a good testbed for what might go wrong if security is placed on this kind of footing.
There are many reasons to keep DNA private, it gets much worse than just family surprises. Your DNA is yours for the rest of your life, so even if there are no current threats (which there are to some), there may be threats in the future. Please watch this video if you are interested in learning more:
People have doors with locks, and they lock them, even though in most cases it is not too hard to break a window or make a hole in the wall.
"Really, it's not a risk. You won't be able to name a single case of active harm caused by disclosure or sharing of genetic information."
Due to limited resources, medical authorities often have to decide who gets medical treatment. For instance, if someone is an alcoholic and can't quit drinking, giving them a new liver seems like a waste, right? So, genetic information is going to inform medical decisions if it is available. If you have a gene that is thought to predispose you to a recurrence of a problem, then it's logical not to treat it the same way. And the thing that frightens me personally is the idea that this might be done based not on good information but spurious correlations, gut instincts, or popular opinion. Why would you think this is far fetched? Isn't this the way our society already works, never mind possible dystopias?
Actually, because your DNA is yours for life it should be kept far MORE secure than your banking information. You can always change your bank account!
To your other points, this is already being attempted in some countries. Imagine getting a bad "social credit" score because you were born with DNA unfavorable to your government.
I work to apply encryption directly to DNA molecules, the Fort Knox of DNA data security ;)
You can't quantify what is ultimately going to be expressed as qualities by counting the numbers of genes that may be different; it doesn't take that many bits to make you likely to ultimately stay unique for any length of future human history.
Not much else makes sense.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/us/golden-state-killer-ca...
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_in_Pakistan#Connection_t...
A real blowback is going to be when we realize that Western and middle-class anti-vax sentiment caused by Wakefield and various crackpot websites is going to collide through relatives and immigration with South Asian anti-vax sentiment caused by CIA and military operations masquerading as NGO vaccination programs, and result in a vicious circle of vaccination fears.
On Obama's watch. Haven't heard anything about #44 owning up to that one.
“WAVE 3 News contacted Passport representative Ben Adkins, who said Passport is not related to the group. Passport Health warned customers about engaging with them.“
https://globalnews.ca/news/5132802/dna-test-cancer-screening...
"One of these new cancer-screening tests can cost up to $2,000 ... Some Medicaid health insurance plans covers these tests, so they would reimburse that money to whoever conducts the test."
"Freedom Medical Labs was allegedly offering a new DNA-based cancer-screening test ..."
"... only offered the test to customers of Passport Health Plan, the local low-cost Medicaid insurance provider."
Passport being the one Freedom is gearing up to robo-bill through.
The DNA gets stored away in case of audit by Medicaid, in which case the donors might actually get their test results in the mail -- and maybe the results would be genuine, although that expense would cut into the profit margin of the scheme.