Hacker News Reader

Comment by gfiorav | Hacker News Reader

I was honestly baffled to see the proliferation of DNA analysis companies... aren't people concerned about the importance of the data they're giving out? AND you pay to give them that data... leaves me speechless.

How accustomed we've become to giving our privacy away.

View on HN

Speechless? Really? You don't understand why someone would be interested in learning about their health risks or their ancestry?

Unless you have secret illegitimate children or you left DNA behind at a crime scene, using DNA analysis services can only benefit you.

Until someone comes to power that doesn't like your particular ethnic group

I bet insurance companies would pay handsomely to know all your genetic health risks before they insure you. I am none of the things you described but think having our genetic information out there is not a good idea. Call it a gut feeling but I listen to my gut.

I prefer to listen to facts, not intestines. And, in fact, it is illegal for insurance companies to do what you suggest.

And the facts would also show that it was only just recently that Canada was the last G7 country to pass laws preventing insurance companies from doing it. And if you also read more on the topic it is suggested that as genetic testing becomes cheaper and more reliable perhaps in the future this topic will need to be re-examined. So I stand by my gut and it says I would rather keep my dna private. Just in case they change the law in the future.

Can outline what health risk you can learn about in a useful manner with a consumer genetic test?

Also since 23andMe is selling data to pharmaceutical companies, they very much benefit from your DNA.

The speechless part is because of how recklessly some people give out information that an insurance company could use against you for example... specially when these companies make no mention of respecting your privacy in their terms.

I considered using these under a fake name, but from reading the article, it seems like that wouldn’t be enough.

I do see the appeal that this indformation has for individuals, of course.

Yes. Everyone has a remarkable inability to ask the question 'Who benefits?' when they engage with a service. Like Facebook, with consumer genetic tests you give up whole lot to get back very little. You are the product.

I shed hair. I don’t really have any meaningful control over my dna anyway.

I see your point... but it’s hard to believe someone would stalk you to grab your hair and sell it to a company.

If you give a company your dna voluntarily and agree to the terms permitting them sell it though... different story.

Your DNA is no more your private property than your or your grandmother's face.

It's just not that big a deal. You shed your DNA everywhere. Knowing it isn't more useful than information about your life that is already collected and used to manipulate you all the time. It's one of the weaker forms of personal information available.

I'm imagining a dumpster diving industry arising where people find hair scraps and sell them to insurance companies

excuse me one's body and its DNA is most definitely one's property

What about the hair you leave behind on the subway? Or when you spit on the field during an ultimate frisbee game?

I can’t take your hair off your head, but I can take it off the ground.

Or your breathe you push out of your lungs.

Exactly.

What about the image of my face I left behind on the subway, or on the field during an ultimate frisbee game? Sure you can keep my image on your camera, or photo print, but you may not profit from it, because it isn't your property.

Just like your finger prints, height or face. It is uniquely yours but not your property. It's your set of attributes.

None of which are actually "uniquely yours", because everything we know to date about fingerprints or faces or DNA is that there is a low probability of collision with someone else having those same attributes, but it's not zero probability.

Somewhere, somewhen, there is likely to be another person who has a face, or fingerprints, or snippet of DNA that cannot be distinguished from yours within the accuracy of the tools we have today.

There was actually a podcast by Radiolab recently that discusses how and why this is not the case. It's counterintuitive for sure, but pretty interesting.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/asking-friend

Which must mean that you're a thief if you've ever brushed past me on the street. Give my DNA back.

In the US, you do have certain rights to your image. I cannot use an identifiable photograph of you for marketing or advertising without your permission. (That's why, for example, a lot of conference registrations require you to affirmatively agree that photos or videos of you may be used for marketing purposes.)

But pretty much any other use of a photo in a public place is fair game if it doesn't misrepresent you in some way.

Not all states recognize such a right. But most media organizations are based or operate in states like California that do recognize it.

31 states recognize such a right, but the extent of the protections involve vary considerably. In some states, it only protects your name and likeness, while others extend it all the way to things like "stage persona." California naturally has the highest degree of protection, given that it's the center of the entertainment industry.

Agreed, "My DNA is my personal property," is a weak argument.

"My DNA is my personally-identifying data," is a better one.

The question of what rights we have to our personally identifiable information is not yet answered fully, and the debate is an important one (e.g. consider GDPR and the "right to be forgotten").

Data's worth is recognized today by those who are harvesting it from us. The mountains of data which only a few multinational corporations can gather and store in globally-distributed data centers are imperative to machine learning and the artificial intelligences they are making, which will soon direct a great many of our daily conveniences at potentially great profit to them.

So it is important for us to today define what rights we demand to such a valuable resource, which is created solely by, and living within, the only item any of us has true natural possession of: our very bodies.

I agree with you completely.

>Agreed

Do not forget that op argues it isn't that big of a deal.

>Data's worth is recognized today by those who are harvesting it from us.

There is a lot more case-based, abstract, and long-term worth to privacy that is often unrecognized.

> Knowing it isn't more useful than information about your life that is already collected and used to manipulate you all the time.

"Doing bad things isn't a big deal because of all the other bad things already being done." is not a good justification:

Should an individual feel free to "dox" you with impunity because Google and Facebook have been doing it to you for years anyway?

Just because there are dozens of other pieces of personal information that are collected by the powers that be and used to manipulate people doesn’t mean they all are justified.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com